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SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


•The 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK    ■    BOSTON   •    CHICAGO 
ATLANTA  •    SAN  FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Limited 

LONDON   •    BOMBAY   •    CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


AN  OUTLINE  AND  SOURCE  BOOK 


BY 


EDWARD   ALSWORTH   ROSS 

// 

PROFESSOR   OF   SOCIOLOGY  IN  THE   UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN 

AUTHOR    OF  "SOCIAL   CONTROL,"   "THE    FOUNDATIONS 

OF  SOCIOLOGY,"   "SIN   AND   SOCIETY,"   ETC. 


Wefa  iork 
THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

1908 

All  rights  reserved 


Copyright,  igo8, 
Bv  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  clectrotyped.     Published  June,  1908. 


NortDcolJ  ?3«03 

J.  8.  Gushing  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 

Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


^0 

MY   HONORED   CO-LABORER 

FRANKLIN   HENRY  GIDDINGS 

BOLD  SEEKER  AND  VALIANT  PROCLAIMER  OF  TRUTH 
THIS  BOOK  IS  DEDICATED 


PREFACE 

It  requires  some  hardihood  to  put  forth  this,  the 
pioneer  treatise,  in  any  language,  professing  to  deal 
systematically  with  the  subject  of  social  psychology. 
In  spite  of  infinite  pains  and  thirteen  years  of  experi- 
ence in  university  teaching  of  the  subject,  I  feel  sure 
this  book  is  strewn  with  errors.  The  ground  is  new, 
and  among  the  hundreds  of  interpretations,  inferences, 
and  generalizations  I  have  ventured  on,  no  doubt  scores 
will  turn  out  to  be  wrong.  Of  course  I  would  strike 
them  out  if  I  knew  which  they  are.  I  would  hold  back 
the  book  could  I  hope  by  longer  scrutiny  to  detect  them. 
But  I  have  brought  social  psychology  as  far  as  I  can 
unaided,  and  nothing  is  to  be  gained  by  delay.  The 
time  has  come  to  hand  over  the  results  of  my  reflection 
to  my  fellow-workers,  in  the  hope  of  provoking  discus- 
sions which  will  part  the  wheat  from  the  chaff  and  set 
it  to  producing  an  hundred  fold. 

Nothing  puts  an  edge  on  one's  thinking  like  coming 
on  new  and  interesting  truth  mixed,  nevertheless,  with 
some  error.  Therefore,  if  the  young  science  is  to 
advance  rapidly,  its  friends  must  not  be  too  fearful  of 
being  found  wrong  on  a  few  points.  Let  each  pros- 
pector —  to  change  the  metaphor  —  empty  out  his  sack 
of  specimens  before  his  brother  prospectors,  even  though 
he  knows  their  practised  glance  will  recognize  some  of 
his  prized  nuggets  as  mere  pyrites.  Then  it  will  not 
take  long  to  locate  the  rich  veins. 

vii 


viii  PREFACE 

So  I  offer  this  book  with  the  wish  that  what  in  it  is 
sound  be  promptly  absorbed  into  the  growth  of  the 
science,  and  the  unsound  be  as  promptly  forgotten. 
Indeed,  the  swiftness  of  its  disintegration  will  measure 
the  rate  of  progress  of  the  subject.  If  it  is  utterly 
superannuated  in  twenty  years,  that  will  be  well ;  if,  in 
ten  years,  it  is  a  back  number,  that  will  be  better.  Per- 
ish the  book,  if  only  social  psychology  may  go  forward ! 
Hence,  I  beg  messieurs,  the  discreet  critics,  to  lay  on 
right  heartily,  remembering  that  in  showing  its  errors 
they  are  triumphing  with  the  author,  not  over  him. 

At  the  moment  of  launching  this  work,  I  pause  to 
pay  heartfelt  homage  to  the  genius  of  Gabriel  Tarde. 
Solicitous  as  I  have  been  to  give  him  due  credit  in  the 
text,  no  wealth  of  excerpt  and  citation  can  reveal  the 
full  measure  of  my  indebtedness  to  that  profound  and 
original  thinker.  While  my  system  has  swung  wide 
of  his,  I  am  not  sure  I  should  ever  have  wrought  out 
a  social  psychology  but  for  the  initial  stimulus  and  the 
two  great  construction  lines  —  conventionality  and  cus- 
tom—  yielded  by  his  incomparable  Lois  de  V imitation. 
If  only  this  expression  of  my  gratitude  could  reach  him ! 


EDWARD  ALSWORTH   ROSS. 


Madison,  Wisconsin, 
May,  1908. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER   I 

PAGE 

The  Nature  and  Scope  of  Social  Psychology  .  .  i 
Social  psychology  treats  of  planes  and  currents.  Rela- 
tion of  social  psychology  to  sociology  proper.  A  common 
environment  or  experience  does  not  produce  social  planes. 
Race  traits  are  not  social  planes.  Such  planes  arise  from 
interactions.  Social  psychology  explains  both  society  and 
the  individual.  Divisions.  How  planes  of  sentiment  re- 
garding slavery  formed.  Factors  in  the  formation  of 
religious  planes.     Imitation  vs.  Affinity. 

CHAPTER   n 

Suggestibility ii 

The  higher  psychic  growths  imply  association.  Much 
of  one's  mental  content  comes  from  others.  Psychic 
resonance.  Sub-human  suggestibility.  Nature  men. 
Culture  men.  Suggestibility  in  relation  to  age,  tempera- 
ment, and  sex.  Women  more  suggestible  than  men.  In 
the  normal  state  indirect  suggestion  succeeds  best.  Effect 
of  fasting;  of  fatigue  and  hysteria.  Nordau's  theory.  An 
alternative  explanation.  Theory  of  hypnotic  phenomena. 
Normal  and  abnormal  suggestibihty.  Miracle.  Oriental 
magic.  Source  of  suggestion  —  prestige.  Traits  of  the 
born  leader.  Force  vs.  Prestige  in  politics.  Duration 
of  suggestion.  Volume  of  suggestion :  the  secret  of  the 
might  of  public  opinion ;  the  fatalism  of  the  multitude ; 
individuality  and  numbers. 

CHAPTER   III 

The  Crowd 43 

Individuality  and  voluntary  movement.  Wilting  of  the 
self  in  the  crowd.     Fixation  of  attention.     Excitement. 

ix 


X  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Emotionalism.  Arrest  of  thought.  The  leader.  The 
psychic  process  in  the  crowd.  The  time  element.  The 
Kentucky  Revival ;  its  psychology.  Why  the  crowd  can- 
not last.  Instability,  credulity,  irrationality,  simplicity, 
and  non-morality  of  the  crowd.  It  is  the  lowest  form  of 
association.  How  deliberative  assemblies  escape.  Mob 
mind  in  city  dwellers ;  its  bearing  on  booms  and  panics. 
Comparison  of  city  and  country  in  respect  to  crowd 
phenomena. 

CHAPTER   IV 

Mob  Mind 63 

Differences  between  crowd  and  public.  Ours  the  era 
of  publics.  Craze  and  fad  as  symptoms  of  mob  mind. 
Theory  of  the  craze.  Socio-psychic  phenomena  in  the 
early  Church.  The  Children's  Crusade.  Mediaeval  epi- 
demics. Mental  epidemics  in  America:  Millerism ;  the 
Women's  Crusade;  Mrs.  Nation.  Financial  crazes; 
the  tulip  mania.  Stampedes.  The  "Great  Fear."  The 
war  spirit  of  '61.  The  laws  of  crazes.  Theory  of  the 
fad ;  Faddism  vs.  Progress.  Why  fads  flourish  nowa- 
days. 

CHAPTER   V 

Prophylactics  against  Mob  Mind 83 

Need  of  building  up  individuality.  Education  for  criti- 
cism. How  to  become  crank-proof.  Steadying  influence 
of  the  classic.  The  influence  of  sane  teachers.  Avoidance 
of  the  sensational  newspaper.  Sport  trains  to  inhibition. 
Stability  of  the  country-bred.  Familism.  Sobering  effect 
of  ownership.  Voluntary  association  disciplines  men. 
Intellectual  self-possession  as  an  ideal.  Pride  or  love  as 
moral  mainspring.     Avoidance  of  yellow  religion. 

CHAPTER   VI 
Fashion 94 

Outward  conformity  and  inward  conformity.  The  pas- 
sion for  self-individualization.     Its  persistence  in  American 


CONTENTS  XI 


PAGE 


society.  Democracy  does  not  exclude  inequality.  The 
two  movements  in  the  fashion  process.  The  shackling  of 
competitive  consumption ;  the  disappearance  of  sumptuary 
laws.  Effect  of  caste.  Acceleration  of  the  fashion  process 
in  a  commercialized  democracy.  Why  fashions  less  stable. 
The  characteristics  of  modern  fashion.  The  rebellion 
against  fashion  and  the  liberalization  of  costume. 

CHAPTER   VII 

The  Nature  of  Conventionality no 

Conventionality  reaches  to  the  very  framework  of  our 
lives  and  furnishes  postulates  for  our  thinking.  Laborers 
accept  the  upper  class  stigma  on  toil ;  accept  the  commer- 
cial standard  of  human  worth ;  and  of  civic  worth.  We 
adopt  leisure  class  opinion  touching  conservativism.  Cer- 
tain standards  of  beauty  originate  in  leisure  class  snobbery. 
Why  it  is  unwomanly  for  women  to  use  stimulants.  "  The 
spirit  of  the  age  "  is  a  plane  established  by  imitation. 

CHAPTER   VIII 
The  Laws  of  Conventionality  Imitation        .        .        .121 
Bodily  movements  spread  readily  :  the  Flagellants  ;  the 
Dancing  Mania ;  the  Jumpers  ;  epidemics  of  convulsions  ; 
national  gestures.     Onomatopoeia.     The  spread  of  dishes 
and  drinks.     Inflammability  of  the  sex  appetite.     Feelings 
easily  induced  by  suggestion  ;  infectiousness  of  hope,  fear, 
courage,  curiosity.     Unity  more  attainable  through  feel- 
ings than  through  beliefs.     Ideal  vs.  Dogma  as  a  religious 
rallying  point.     Seductiveness  of  imaginary  characters; 
the  grave  responsibility  of  the  Artist.     Contagiousness  of 
personal   ideals.      Sex   charm    follows   the    conventional 
female  type ;   realizing  a  beauty  ideal  in  the  flesh.     The 
radiation  of  will.      Obedience  draws  other  imitations  in 
its  wake.      Tarde's  law.      Americanization  of  the  Porto 
Ricans.     Why  nothing  succeeds  like  success.     Theory  of 
survivals.     Reverential  imitation  precedes  competitive  imi- 
tation.    The  spread  of  ideas  precedes  the  spread  of  the 
arts.     Why  fundamental  beliefs  spread  the  farthest. 


xii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER   IX 

PAGE 

The  Radiant  Points  of  Conventionality  .  .  .147 
Workingmen's  refusal  to  accept  certain  bourgeois  stand- 
ards :  late  marriage ;  child  emancipation.  Merit  may 
mount  in  defiance  of  social  gravity.  What  the  superior 
borrows  from  the  inferior.  Why  colonists  are  conserva- 
tive. Most  diffusions,  however,  obey  social  gravity.  The 
descent  of  wants  ;  of  culture ;  of  manners  and  accomplish- 
ments ;  of  ideals.  Aristocracies  the  first  assimilators  of 
peoples.  A  live  aristocracy  is  progressive  and  cosmopoli- 
tan. Why  democracies  must  foster  higher  education. 
Differentiation  of  the  arts  and  professions.  Titular  aris- 
tocracy as  a  hindrance  to  the  diffusion  of  culture ;  the 
British  nobility. 

CHAPTER  X 

The  Radiant  Points  of  Conventionality  {contimied)     .     166 

The  power-holder  is  copied ;  the  Roman  Emperor ; 
Rome  ;  monarchs  ;  national  imitation  of  court  luxuries  and 
extravagances.  The  imitation  of  the  successful.  Struggle 
between  the  aristocracy  of  achievement  and  the  titled. 
The  pace-setters  in  our  democracy.  Imitation  of  the  rich 
by  Mammon  worshippers.  The  rise  of  the  American 
doUarocracy.  Barbarizing  influence  of  the  Smart  Set. 
The  spread  of  a  pecuniary  civilization. 

CHAPTER  XI 

The  Radiant  Points  of  Conventionality  {concluded')     .     181 

High  potential  of  the  city.  The  cities  pass  the  torch  to 
the  rest  of  society ;  their  spell  upon  the  country.  Capi- 
tals. Sapping  of  the  country  in  monarchical  France  ;  the 
ascendency  of  Paris.  The  revival  of  local  centres.  Why 
the  city  has  a  glamour.  Limits  to  metropolitan  leader- 
ship. In  democracies  majorities  are  imitated.  Among 
equals  the  greater  number  has  prestige.  The  fatalism  of 
the  multitude  vs.  the  leadership  of  the  ^lite.  The  spread 
of  ideas  of  equality  by  means  of  social  gravity. 


CONTENTS  xiii 

CHAPTER  XII 

rAGB 

Custom  Imitation 196 

Contrast  of  custom  and  conventionality ;  of  custom  and 
heredity.  Why  the  familiar  beaten  paths  are  pleasant. 
Influence  of  animistic  ideas.  Pseudo-scientific  sanction 
of  customs;  "historical  continuity."  The  true  view. 
Tendency  toward  the  formation  of  an  etiquette  in  lan- 
guage; in  ritual;  in  dogma;  in  politics;  in  law;  in  ad- 
ministration ;  in  education.  The  arrest  of  progress  by  a 
cake  of  custom  :  British  immobility ;  American  immobility. 
Why  new  societies  outstrip  all  others ;  the  secret  of  the 
"Western"  spirit. 

CHAPTER  XIII 

Conditions  affecting  the  Sway  of  Custom    .        .        .    217 

Ancestor-worship.  The  age  of  governors  and  leaders  : 
China  compared  with  revolutionary  France ;  old  men  in 
warfare  and  business ;  old  men  as  custodians  of  religion 
and  law.  Overgrowth  of  State  and  Church.  Physical 
isolation  ;  mountains ;  islands  ;  the  backwoods  ;  effect  of 
improved  communication.  Linguistic  isolation.  Social 
isolation ;  the  Jews  ;  guest-friendship  among  the  Greeks. 
House  life.  Literacy.  The  school  may  be  instrument 
either  of  progress  or  of  tradition  ;  universities  as  citadels 
of  dead  learning.  Freedom  of  discussion.  The  supremacy 
of  an  ancient  sacred  book.  Strong  group  or  race  feeling: 
no  inter-assimilation  among  custom-bound  peoples  ;  Rus- 
sian vs.  American  assimilation.  Sedentariness.  Culture 
contacts.  In  primitive  times  no  contact  of  peoples  save 
through  war.  Warfare  breaks  up  habit  and  commingles 
the  products  of  local  developments.  Famihsm.  Dissolu- 
tion of  the  kin  group  makes  for  individuality  and  initiative. 

CHAPTER  XIV 

The  Fields  of  Custom  Imitation 254 

Custom  cannot  thrive  where  there  is  competition.  It 
persists  in  the  less   accessible  fields.     Collective  habits 


xiv  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

more  stable  than  individual  habits.  Habits  of  consump- 
tion more  persistent  than  habits  of  production.  The 
standard  of  living ;  ease  of  exploiting  a  custom-bound 
people ;  why  unrestricted  Asiatic  immigration  is  danger- 
ous ;  race  suicide.  Custom  powerful  in  matters  of  feel- 
ing. Inter-race,  inter-class,  inter-confession,  and  inter-sex 
feelings  resist  change.  Feeling  not  to  be  overcome  by 
argument.  Institutions  of  control  slow  to  change.  Archa- 
ism of  law;  of  government ;  of  organized  religion. 

CHAPTER  XV 

Relation   of    Custom    Imitation    to    Conventionality 

Imitation       .        .        . 275 

Profound  contrast  between  a  traditional  and  an  un- 
traditional  society.  Oscillations  between  nationalism  and 
cosmopolitanism.  When  custom  rules  the  new  pretends 
to  be  old.  When  conventionaHty  rules  the  old  pretends 
to  be  new ;  or  the  old  denies  the  newness  of  the  new. 

CHAPTER  XVI 

Rational  Imitation 285 

Attitude  of  the  rational  imitator.  Relation  of  moral  and 
aesthetic  progress  to  material  and  intellectual  progress. 
Rational  imitation  admits  of  authority.  Rationality  in  the 
spread  of  the  practical  arts  :  competition  ;  measurement ; 
why  "schools"  and  "movements"  in  the  fine  arts.  Ra- 
tionality in  the  spread  of  science :  applications ;  verifica- 
tion ;  Science  vs.  "  Thought "  ;  why  "  schools  "  in  the 
latter.  The  extensive  growth  of  rational  imitation.  Its 
intensive  growth  ;  the  rising  sciences. 

CHAPTER  XVII 

Interference  and  Conflict 296 

Silent  conflict  and  vocal  conflict.  Struggle  of  prestige 
against  prestige ;  of  prestige  against  merit ;  the  conflict 
between  old  and  new.  Duel  between  merit  and  merit. 
Means  of  deciding  silent  conflicts.     The  appeal  to  author- 


CONTENTS  XV 

PAGB 

ity ;  the  case  of  Joseph  II.  The  resort  to  persecution; 
the  psychology  of  martyrdom.  Why  silent  conflict  tends 
to  break  out  into  discussion. 

CHAPTER  XVIII 

Discussion 307 

Discussion  abbreviates  conflicts.  Why  doomed  causes 
hate  it.  Curative  power  of  free  discussion.  Its  growing 
copiousness.  Talk  does  change  opinion.  When  contro- 
versy is  fruitful ;  when  fruitless.  Theory  of  the  polemic. 
The  path  of  degeneration  of  discussion ;  the  appeal  to 
force.  Three  phases  of  discussion.  The  evolution  of 
discussion ;  its  secular  achievements ;  its  law  of  develop- 
ment. 

CHAPTER  XIX 

The  Results  of  Conflict 324 

Struggles  may  last  indefinitely  because  of  innate  differ- 
ences in  people  ;  or  because  a  paradox  is  pitted  against  an 
illusion.  Struggles  may  terminate  because  one  side  is 
beaten ;  because  a  middle  ground  is  found ;  or  because 
specialization  takes  place.  But  no  struggle  is  settled  until 
it  is  settled  right. 


'&' 


CHAPTER   XX 
Union  and  Accumulation 330 

Two  sides  to  every  culture  fabric.  Rigid  and  plastic 
sides  of  religion  ;  of  science  ;  of  law ;  of  industry  and  art. 
The  non-accumulable  elements  are  superior.  But  advance 
is  easier  on  the  plastic  side  than  on  the  rigid.  Precipita- 
tion of  conflicts  by  the  pressure  of  accumulated  materials. 

CHAPTER  XXI 
Compromise 338 

Compromise  frequent  in  matters  calling  for  collective 
action.  Sometimes  it  breaks  a  social  deadlock.  Oftener 
it  indicates  an  uncompleted  conflict.     Tragic  feud  between 


xvi  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

compromiser  and  reformer.  English  fondness  for  com- 
promise. The  Toleration  Act.  French  penchant  for 
symmetry  and  system.  Advantages  and  disadvantages  of 
compromise. 

CHAPTER  XXII 

Public  Opinion 346 

The  formation  of  public  opinion  in  a  campaign.  Pri- 
mary impression.  The  marshalling  of  authorities.  Why 
independent  judgment  is  often  impossible ;  necessity  of 
relying  on  the  expert.  The  ascendency  of  the  ^lite.  Bal- 
loting a  means  of  registering  public  opinion ;  manhood 
suffrage  does  not  equalize  Socrates  and  Sambo.  Class 
influence  in  the  guidance  of  opinion.  The  merging  of 
public  opinion  into  social  tradition. 

CHAPTER   XXIII 

DiSEQUILIBRATION 355 

Why  an  equilibrium  is  not  reached.  Disturbing  influ- 
ence of  culture  contacts  ;  of  a  shifting  of  the  social  founda- 
tions; of  the  afflux  of  inventions  and  discoveries.  No 
prospect  of  the  stationary  state  in  the  Occident.  The 
laws  of  invention :  degrees  of  possibility ;  degrees  of 
difficulty  ;  how  society  can  promote  invention.  A  lasting 
equilibrium  neither  possible  nor  desirable.  Contradictions 
in  a  culture  not  due  to  want  of  logic ;  putting  new  wine 
into  old  bottles.  An  epoch  of  disequilibration  gives  the 
individual  a  chance.  Effect  of  the  ripening  of  the  social 
mind  upon  individuality :  the  integration  of  culture ;  the 
diversification  of  culture. 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


SOCIAL    PSYCHOLOGY 

CHAPTER  I 

THE   NATURE   AND   SCOPE   OF  SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

Social  psychology,  as  the  writer  conceives  it,  studies  the  Social  Psy- 
psychic   planes   and    currents   that   come   into   existence  treais^of 
among  men  in  consequence  of  their  association.     It  seeks  social  planes 

,  J        i.       J  1  i  f        ii  'r  -i-        •       f     1      and  currents 

to  understand  and  account  for  those  uniformities  in  feel- 
ing, belief,  or  volition  — •  and  hence  in  action  —  which  are 
due  to  the  interaction  of  human  beings,  i.e.,  to  social 
causes.  No  two  persons  have  just  the  same  endowment. 
Looking  at  their  heredity,  we  should  expect  people  to  be 
far  more  dissimilar  and  individual  than  we  actually  find 
them  to  be.  The  aligning  power  of  association  triumphs 
over  diversity  of  temperament  and  experience.  There 
ought  to  be  as  many  religious  creeds  as  there  are  human 
beings;  but  we  find  people  ranged  under  a  few  great 
religions.  It  is  the  same  in  respect  to  dress,  diet,  pastimes, 
or  moral  ideas.  The  individuality  each  has  received 
from  the  hand  of  nature  is  largely  effaced,  and  we  find 
people  gathered  into  great  planes  of  uniformity. 

In  shifting  attention  from  the  agreements  in  which  men 
rest,  such  as  languages,  religions,  and  cultures,  to  the  agi- 
tations into  which  they  are  drawn,  it  is  natural  to  change 
the  metaphor  from  plane  to  current.  The  spread  of  the 
lynching  spirit  through  a  crowd  in  the  presence  of  an 
atrocious  criminal,  the  contagion  of  panic  in  a  beaten 


SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 


Relation  of 
social  psy- 
chology to 
sociology 
proper 


Planes  pro- 
duced by  a 
common  en- 
vironment 
or  experience 
are  not 
social 


army,  an  epidemic  of  religious  emotion,  and  the  sympa- 
thetic extension  of  a  strike  call  up  the  thought  of  a  current, 
which  bears  people  along  for  a  time  and  then  ceases. 

Social  psychology  differs  from  sociology  proper  in  that 
the  former  considers  planes  and  currents ;  the  latter,  groups 
and  structures.^  Their  interests  bring  men  into  coopera- 
tion or  conflict.  They  group  themselves  for  the  purpose 
of  cooperating  or  struggling,  and  they  devise  structures 
as  a  means  of  adjusting  interests  and  attaining  practical 
ends.  Social  psychology  considers  them  only  as  coming 
into  planes  or  currents  of  uniformity,  not  as  uniting  into 
groups.  Since  the  former  determine  the  latter  more  than 
the  latter  determine  the  former,  social  psychology  should 
precede  rather  than  follow  sociology  proper  in  the  order 
of  studies. 

Social  psychology  pays  no  attention  to  the  non-psychic 
parallelisms  among  human  beings  (an  epidemic  of  disease 
or  the  prevalence  of  chills  and  fever  among  the  early 
settlers  of  river-bottom  lands),  or  to  the  psychic  parallel- 
isms that  result  therefrom  (melancholia  or  belief  in 
eternal  punishment).  It  neglects  the  uniformities  among 
people  that  are  produced  by  the  direct  action  of  a  common 
physical  environment  (superstitiousness  of  sailors,  gayety 
of  open-air  peoples,  suggestibility  of  dwellers  on  monoto- 
nous plains,  independent  spirit  of  mountaineers),  or  by 
subjection  to  similar  conditions  of  life  (dissipatedness  of 
tramp  printers,  recklessness  of  cowboys,  preciseness  of 
elderly  school  teachers,  suspiciousness  of  farmers). 


'  The  present  treatise  is,  therefore,  by  no  means  the  same  as  psycho- 
logical sociology,  for  it  omits  the  psychology  of  groups.  The  writer 
doubts  whether  it  is  practicable  or  wise  to  treat  the  psychological  side 
of  sociology  quite  apart  from  the  morphological  side. 


NATURE  AND   SCOPE  3 

Social  psychology  ignores  uniformities  arising  directly  Race  traits 
or  indirectly  out  of  race  endowment  —  negro  volubility,  social  pi 


anes 


gypsy  nomadism,  Malay  vindictiveness,  Singhalese  treach- 
ery, Magyar  passion  for  music,  Slavic  mysticism,  Teutonic 
venturesomeness,  American  restlessness.  How  far  such 
common  characters  are  really  racial  in  origin  and  how  far 
merely  social  is  a  matter  yet  to  be  settled.  Probably  they 
are  much  less  congenital  than  we  love  to  imagine.  "  Race  " 
is  the  cheap  explanation  tyros  offer  for  any  collective  trait 
that  they  are  too  stupid  or  too  lazy  to  trace  to  its  origin  in 
the  physical  environment,  the  social  environment,  or  his- 
torical conditions. 

Social  psychology  deals  only  with  uniformities  due  to  Social  planes 
social  causes,  i.e.,  to  menial  contacts  or  mental  interactions,  ^"ma™™ 
In  each  case  we  must  ask,  "Are  these  human  beings  aligned   interactions 
by  their  common  instincts  and  temperament,  their  com- 
mon geographical  situation,  their  identical  conditions  of 
life,  or  by  their  inter  psychology,  i.e.,  the  influences  they 
have  received  from  one  another  or  from  a  common  human 
source?"     The   fact   that   a   mental   agreement   extends 
through   society   bringing   into   a   common    plane    great 
numbers  of  men  does  not  make  it  social.     It  is  social  only 
in  so  far  as  it  arises  out  of  the  interplay  of  minds. 

Social  psychology  seeks  to  enlarge  our  knowledge  of  Social 
society  by  explaining  how  so  many  planes  in  feeling,  belief,  ^hedsligh^ 
or  purpose  have  established  themselves  among  men  and   on  society 
supplied  a  basis  for  their  groupings,  their  cooperations, 
and  their  conflicts.     But  for  the  processes  which  weave 
into  innumerable  men  certain  ground  patterns  of  ideas, 
beliefs,  and  preferences,  great  societies  could  not  endure.       ^ 
No  communities  could  last  save  those  held  together  by 
social  pleasure  or  the  necessity  for  cooperation.     National 


SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 


And  on  the 
individual 


Divisions  of 

social 

psychology 


characteristics  would  not  arise,  and  strife  would  be  the 
rule  outside  of  the  group  of  men  subject  to  the  same  area 
of  characterization. 

It  seeks  to  enlarge  our  knowledge  of  the  individual  by 
ascertaining  how  much  of  his  mental  content  and  choice 
is  derived  from  his  social  surroundings.  Each  of  us  loves 
to  think  himself  unique,  self-made,  moving  in  a  path  all 
his  own.  To  be  sure,  he  finds  his  feet  in  worn  paths,  but 
he  imagines  he  follows  the  path  because  it  is  the  right  one, 
not  because  it  is  trodden.  Thus  Cooiey  ^  observes :  "The 
more  thoroughly  American  a  man  is,  the  less  he  can  per- 
ceive Americanism.  He  will  embody  it ;  all  he  does,  says, 
or  writes  will  be  full  of  it ;  but  he  can  never  truly  see  it, 
simply  because  he  has  no  exterior  point  of  view  from 
which  to  look  at  it."  Now,  by  demonstrating  everywhere 
in  our  lives  the  unsuspected  presence  of  social  factors, 
social  psychology  spurs  us  to  push  on  and  build  up  a 
genuine  individuality,  to  become  a  voice  and  not  an  echo, 
a  person  and  not  a  parrot.  The  realization  of  how  pitiful 
is  the  contribution  we  have  made  to  what  we  are,  how  few 
of  our  ideas  are  our  own,  how  rarely  we  have  thought  out 
a  belief  for  ourselves,  how  little  our  feelings  arise  naturally 
out  of  our  situation,  how  poorly  our  choices  express  the 
real  cravings  of  our  nature,  first  mortifies,  then  arouses,  us 
to  break  out  of  our  prison  of  custom  and  conventionality 
and  live  an  open-air  life  close  to  reality.  Only  by  eman- 
cipation from  the  spell  of  numbers  and  age  and  social 
eminence  and  personality  can  ciphers  become  integers. 

Social  psychology  falls  into  two  very  unequal  divisions, 
viz.,  Social  Ascendency  and  Individual  Ascendency,  the 
determination  of  the  one  by  the  many  and  the  determina- 

'  "  Human  Nature  and  the  Social  Order,"  36. 


formed 


NATURE   AND   SCOPE  5 

tion  of  the  many  by  the  one ;  the  moulding  of  the  ordinary 
person  by  his  social  environment  and  the  moulding  of  the 
social  environment  by  the  extraordinary  person.  Thus 
the  knightly  pattern,  the  ideal  of  romantic  love,  the  West- 
minster Catechism,  and  the  belief  in  public  education  are 
at  once  achievements  of  superior  persons,  and  elements  in 
the  social  environment  of  innumerable  ordinary  persons. 

For  example,  we  may  distinguish  three  principal  sources 
of  the  feelings  on  slavery  extant  in  this  country  in  i860. 

1.  Observation  or  Experience  of  Slave  Holding.  —  In  How  planes 
the  South  slavery  was  profitable,  and  the  economic  interests  °^  sentiment 

•^  '■  regardmg 

of  that  section  became  bound  up  with  it.     In  the  North  slavery 
it  was  unprofitable,  and  hence  men  could  feel  disinterest- 
edly about  it. 

2.  Imbibing  from  the  Social  Environment.  —  In  the 
South  belief  in  the  rightfulness  of  slavery  became  first  a 
creed  and  then  a  tradition  under  which  the  young  grew  up. 
During  the  seventy  years  from  1790  to  i860  there  was  a 
marked  increase  of  antipathy  to  the  negro  and  an  exten- 
sion of  the  color  line.  By  1835  pro-slavery  sentiment  had 
become  so  militant  that  abolitionism  was  no  longer  al- 
lowed to  show  itself  openly.  The  generation  reared  in 
this  close  atmosphere  could  not  but  be  biassed.  Southern 
opinion  became  first  homogeneous,  then  imperious,  finally 
intolerant.  Southern  feeling  about  slavery  reached  the 
pitch  of  fanaticism.  Even  the  " poor  whites"  became  pro- 
slavery.  In  the  North  antislavery  sentiment  became  pre- 
dominant, but  not  intolerant.  In  each  section  there 
formed  a  psychic  vortex,  more  and  more  powerful,  which 
sucked  in  the  neutral  and  indifferent  and  imparted  to 
them  its  own  motion. 

3.  The  Initiative  of  the  Elite.  —  In  the  South  the  public 


SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 


Factors  in 
the  forma- 
tion of  reli- 
gious planes 


men,  great  planters,  and  commercial  magnates  moulded 
sectional  opinion  in  support  of  the  "peculiar  institu- 
tion." In  the  North  poets,  divines,  orators,  philosophers, 
and  statesmen  built  up  the  antislavery  sentiment.  Gar- 
rison, Phillips,  Parker,  Lovejoy,  Stowe,  Beecher,  Lowell, 
Thoreau,  and  Whittier  proclaimed  the  mandates  of  the 
voice  within  the  heart. 

Of  these  three  factors  the  first  is  not  social  at  all,  the 
second  exemplifies  social  ascendency,  and  the  third  exem- 
plifies individual  ascendency. 

Again,  to  drive  the  distinction  home,  let  us  consider  the 
factors  that  determine  the  boundary  line  between  Catholi- 
cism and  Protestantism  in  Europe. 

I.  The  Affinity  between  the  Confessions  and  the  People. 
—  Says  Taylor  •}  — 

"The  dolichocephalic  Teutonic  race  is  Protestant,  the 
brachycephalic  Celto-Slavic  race  is  either  Roman  Catholic 
or  Greek  Orthodox.  In  the  first,  individualism,  wilful- 
ness, self-reliance,  independence,  are  strongly  developed; 
the  second  is  submissive  to  authority  and  conservative  in 
instincts.  To  the  Teutonic  races  Latin  Christianity  was 
never  congenial,  and  they  have  now  converted  it  into  some- 
thing very  different  from  what  it  was  at  first,  or  from  what 
it  became  in  the  hands  of  Latin  and  Greek  doctors.  The 
Teutonic  peoples  are  averse  to  sacerdotalism,  and  have 
shaken  off  priestly  guidance  and  developed  individualism. 
Protestantism  was  a  revolt  against  a  religion  imposed  by 
the  South  upon  the  North,  but  which  had  never  been  con- 
genial to  the  Northern  mind.  The  German  princes,  who 
were  of  purer  Teutonic  blood  than  their  subjects,  were  the 
leaders  of  the  ecclesiastical  revolt.     Scandinavia  is  more 

'  "The  Origin  of  the  Aryans,"  247-249. 


NATURE  AND   SCOPE  7 

purely  Teutonic  than  Germany,  and  Scandinavia  is  Prot- 
estant to  the  backbone.  The  Lowland  Scotch,  who  are 
more  purely  Teutonic  than  the  English,  have  given  the 
freest  development  to  the  genius  of  Protestantism.  Those 
Scotch  clans  which  have  clung  to  the  old  faith  have  the 
smallest  admixture  of  Teutonic  blood.  Ulster,  the  most 
Teutonic  province  of  Ireland,  is  the  most  firmly  Protes- 
tant. The  case  of  the  Belgians  and  the  Dutch  is  very 
striking.  The  line  of  religious  division  became  the  line 
of  political  separation,  and  is  conterminous  with  the  two 
racial  provinces.  The  mean  cephalic  index  of  the  Dutch 
is  75.3,  which  is  nearly  that  of  the  Swedes  and  the  North 
Germans ;  the  mean  index  of  the  Belgians  is  79,  which  is 
that  of  the  Parisians.  The  Burgundian  cantons  of  Swit- 
zerland, which  possess  the  largest  proportion  of  Teutonic 
blood,  are  Protestant,  while  the  brachycephalic  cantons 
in  the  East  and  South  are  the  stronghold  of  Catholicism. 
South  Germany,  which  is  brachycephalic,  is  Catholic; 
North  Germany,  which  is  dolichocephalic,  is  Protestant. 
Hanover,  which  is  Protestant,  has  a  considerably  low^r 
index  than  Cologne,  which  is  Catholic.  The  Thirty 
Years'  War  was  a  war  of  race  as  well  as  of  religion,  and 
the  peace  of  Westphalia  drew  the  line  of  religious  demar- 
cation with  tolerable  precision  along  the  ethnic  frontier. 

"Wherever  the  Teutonic  blood  is  purest  —  in  North 
Germany,  Sweden,  Norway,  Iceland,  Ulster,  the  Orkneys, 
the  Lothians,  Yorkshire,  East  Anglia  —  Protestantism 
found  easy  entrance,  and  has  retained  its  hold,  often  in 
some  exaggerated  form.  In  Bohemia,  France,  Belgium, 
Alsace,  it  has  been  trodden  out.  In  Galway  and  Kerry 
it  has  no  footing.  The  Welsh  and  the  Cornishmen,  who 
became   Protestants   by   political   accident,   have   trans- 


8  SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

formed  Protestantism  into  an  emotional  religion,  which 
has  inner  affinities  with  the  emotional  faith  of  Ireland  and 
Italy.  Even  now  Protestantism  gains  no  converts  in  the 
South  of  Em-ope,  or  Catholicism  in  the  North.  Roman 
Catholicism,  or  the  cognate  creed  of  the  Greek  and  Rus- 
sian Orthodox  churches,  is  dominant  in  all  those  lands 
where  the  brachycephalic  race  prevails;  Protestantism  is 
confined  to  the  dolichocephalic  Teutonic  region." 

2.  The  Initiative  of  Religious  Leaders.  —  The  work  of 
Huss,  Luther,  Knox,  Calvin,  was,  of  course,  a  decisive 
factor  in  the  formative  years  of  Protestantism.  It  is  less 
to-day,  seeing  that  the  teachings  of  the  earlier  leaders  have 
struck  root  and  become  a  tradition.  Nevertheless,  even 
now,  the  frontier  between  the  confessions  is  disturbed  by 
the  shifting  of  a  Newman  from  one  side  to  the  other. 

3.  The  Authority  of  Numbers  and  Tradition.  —  Only 
the  very  independent  mind  turns  Catholic  in  Scandinavia, 
where  all  but  one  in  a  thousand  are  Lutheran,  or  Protes- 
tant in  Portugal,  where  all  but  one  in  ten  thousand  are 
Catholic.  In  religion,  moreover,  parental  upbringing  is 
well-nigh  decisive.  Save  among  migrants,  few  converts 
are  made  by  one  side  from  the  other.  Every  man  denies 
that  his  faith  is  inherited  or  thrust  upon  him  by  cir- 
cumstances. On  the  contrary,  he  imagines  that  it  is  a 
matter  of  intelligent  free  choice.  But  this  is  an  illusion. 
The  recognized  ascendency  of  remote  historical  factors  in 
determining  the  religious  preferences  of  peoples  empha- 
sizes how  non-rational  and  unfree  are  the  religious  adhe- 
sions of  men.  The  Irish  are  devotedly  and  stubbornly 
Catholic  because  their  aforetime  oppressors  were  Protes- 
tants. Not  present  causes,  but  Smithfield,  the  Armada, 
Klnox,  and  Claverhouse,   make   England  so  Protestant, 


NATURE  AND   SCOPE  9 

Scotland  so  Presbyterian.  Long-forgotten  struggles  with 
non-Christians  made  Spain  so  bigoted  as  she  is  to-day, 
and  Russia  so  Orthodox. 

The  second  and  third  of  these  determinative  factors  are  imitation 
social,  but  not  the  first.     It  is  evident,  then,  that  the  great  J^^^^J^^f^ 
rival  to  Imitation  as  the  key  to  social  uniformities  is  Usher  of 
Affinity.     Thus  it  has  been  maintained  that  there  is  an  among  men 
inner  sympathy  between  agriculture  and  orthodoxy,  be- 
tween commerce  and  heresy,  between  machine  industry 
and  scepticism,  between  artists  and  socialism. 

The  affinities  or  suitabilities  that  govern  choices  present 
themselves  more  clearly  in  races  than  in  peoples,  in 
peoples  than  in  communities,  in  communities  than  in 
individuals.  Thus  great  numbers  of  individuals  are 
Catholic  from  some  form  of  imitation,  yet  the  brachy- 
cephalic  race  seems  to  be  Catholic  from  affinity.  Innu- 
merable persons  wear  tweeds  and  cheviots  on  account  of 
fashion,  yet  the  ultimate  reason  for  the  vogue  of  these 
stuffs  is  their  suitability  to  certain  damp  chill  climates. 
Despite  the  mob  mind  in  them,  the  Crusades  display  a 
good  deal  of  rationality.  They  were  expeditions  for  the 
conquest  of  powerful  talismans.  There  is  probably  an 
affinity  between  parliamentary  institutions  and  the  Eng- 
lish-speaking peoples  on  their  present  plane  of  culture. 
The  frequent  illworking  of  such  institutions  in  southern 
Europe  and  South  America  suggests  that  among  the 
Latins  they  persist  by  imitation. 

SUMMARY 

Social  psychology  treats  of  the  psychic  planes  and  currents  that 
arise  in  consequence  of  human  association. 

It  does  not  consider  common  race  traits  nor  pyschic  uniformities 


10  SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

produced  by  the  direct  action  of  the  physical  environment  or  by  ex- 
posure to  similar  conditions  of  life. 

Its  phenomena  may  be  considered  under  the  heads  of  Social 
Ascendency  and  Individual  Ascendency. 

A  wide  uniformity  in  belief,  practice,  or  institution  is  either  the 
manifestation  of  an  afl&nity  or  the  outcome  of  imitation. 

EXERCISES 

1.  Social  psychology  has  been  defined  as  "the  genesis  of  those 
states  of  consciousness  produced  in  the  individual  by  the  presence  of 
and  contact  with  his  fellows."  How  does  this  notion  dififer  from 
that  given  in  the  text? 

2.  Show  that  the  phenomena  grouped  under  Individual  Ascendency 
do  not  so  lend  themselves  to  generalization  as  the  phenomena  grouped 
under  Social  Ascendency. 


CHAPTER  II 

SUGGESTIBILITY 

The  older  psychology  was  individualistic  in  its  interpre-  The  higher 
tations.     The  contents  of  the  mind  were  looked  upon  as  growths  im- 
elaborations  out  of  personal  experience.      It  sought  to  piy  associa- 

,  .  ,  .  .  1     •!  tion 

show  how  from  the  primary  sense  perceptions  are  built  up 
ideas,  at  first  simple,  then  more  and  more  complex  —  ideas 
of  space,  time,  number,  cause,  etc.  The  upper  stories  of 
personality,  framed  on  beliefs,  standards,  valuations,  and 
ideals,  were  comparatively  neglected.  The  psychologist 
failed  to  note  that  for  these  highly  elaborated  products  we 
are  more  indebted  to  our  fellow-men  than  to  our  individual 
experience,  that  they  are  wrought  out,  as  it  were,  collec- 
tively, and  not  by  each  for  himself. 

The  newer  psychology  in  accounting  for  the  contents  of  Much  of 
the  mind  gives  great  prominence  to  the  social  factor.     It  content 
insists  that  without  interaction  with  other  minds  the  psychic  comes  from 

others 

development  of  the  child  would  be  arrested  at  a  stage  not 
far  above  idiocy.  Such  interaction  arises  necessarily 
from  the  suggestibility  of  human  nature.  A  person  can- 
not unswervingly  follow  the  orbit  prescribed  by  his  hered- 
ity or  his  private  experience.  He  does  not  sit  serene  at 
the  centre  of  things  and  coolly  decide  which  of  the  exam- 
ples and  ideas  that  present  themselves  he  shall  adopt.  — 
Much  of  what  impinges  on  his  consciousness  comes  with 
some  force.     It  has  momentum,  and  if  he  does  not  yield 

II 


12  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

to  it,  it  is  because  his  mind  resists  with  a  greater  force. 
The  weak  mind,  like  Sir  James  Brooke  in  "  Middlemarch," 
"takes  shape  easily,  but  won't  keep  shape."  Many  a  man 
thinks  he  makes  up  his  mind,  whereas,  in  truth,  it  is  made 
up  for  him  by  some  masterful  associate  or  by  the  man  who 
talked  with  him  last. 

Stimuli  welling  up  from  within  may  be  termed  impulses, 
whereas  those  reaching  us  directly  from  without  may  be 
termed  suggestions.  The  latter  may  be  defined  as  "  the 
abrupt  entrance  from  without  into  consciousness  of  an 
idea  or  image  which  becomes  a  part  of  the  stream  of 
thought  and  tends  to  produce  the  muscular  and  volitional 
effects  which  ordinarily  follow  upon  its  presence."  * 
Examples  of  the  working  of  suggestion  are  legion.  Per- 
sons accustomed  to  being  put  under  the  influence  of  an- 
aesthetics have  "gone  off"  as  soon  as  the  familiar  chloro- 
form mask  was  laid  on  the  face,  but  before  any  chloroform 
had  been  poured  on  it.  A  professor  of  chemistry  an- 
nounced to  his  auditors:  "The  bottle  which  you  see 
before  me  contains  a  chemical  with  a  strong  and  peculiar 
odor.  I  wish  to  see  how  rapidly  the  odor  will  be  diffused 
through  the  air  and  will  therefore  ask  each  of  you  to  raise 
the  hand  as  soon  as  the  odor  is  perceived."  With  face 
averted  he  then  poured  the  liquid  over  some  cotton  and 
started  a  stop  watch.  In  fifteen  seconds  most  of  those  in 
the  front  row  had  given  the  sign,  and  by  the  end  of  a 
minute  three-fourths  of  the  audience  claimed  to  perceive 
the  smell.  Yet  the  bottle  contained  nothing  but  distilled 
water,  and  the  professor  had  been  measuring  the  power 
of  suggestion  and  not  the  diffusibility  of  an  odor !  ^ 

'Baldwin,  "Handbook  of  Psychology,"  II,  297. 
'  Psychological  Review,  VI,  407. 


SUGGESTIBILITY  13 

Suggestions  are  true  forces  and  enact  themselves  unless 
they  meet  resistance.  The  power  to  withstand,  ignore,  or 
throw  off  suggestions  is  one  form  of  inhibition,  i.e.,  will 
power.  Suggestion  and  imitation  are  merely  two  aspects 
of  the  same  thing,  the  one  being  cause,  the  other  effect. 

Suggestibility  varies  according  to,  — 

1.  Species.  —  It  appears  to  be  more  marked  in  grega-  Suggestibii- 
rious  than  in  solitary  creatures.     Not  all  simians  are  imi-  JJuj^ankveis 
tative,  but  the  gregarious  simians,  the  monkeys,  are  pro- 
verbially so.     Sheep  are  so  imitative  that  if  a  file  of  them 

be  driven  through  a  narrow  passage  and  the  leader  be 
made  to  jump  over  a  stick  held  across  the  passage,  every  one 
of  the  file  will  jump  at  that  place,  even  if  the  stick  be 
withdrawn.  Only  high  suggestibility  could  produce  the 
wonderful  instantaneous  concert  of  action  seen  in  the 
herd  of  deer  or  buffalo,  the  band  of  wild  horses  or 
elephants. 

2.  Race.  —  Suggestibility  is  not  a  weakness  produced  The  waxen 
by  civilization.  We  are  told  that  if  Samoyeds  be  sitting  ^j"^f^^„ 
about  inside  their  skin  tents  in  the  evening  and  some  one 

creeps  up  and  strikes  the  tent  with  his  hand,  half  of  them 
are  likely  to  fall  into  cataleptic  fits.  Recent  investiga- 
tions show  this  nervous  instability  to  be  very  widespread 
among  the  Siberian  tribes.  We  are  assured  that  among 
the  Malays  prevails  Idtah,  an  uncanny  disorder  which 
would  be  expected  of  the  high-strung  nervous  systems  of 
ultra-refined  Europeans  rather  than  of  artless,  unsophis- 
ticated children  of  nature  like  the  Malays.  Once  you 
have  the  attention  of  Idtah-struck  persons,  "by  merely 
looking  them  hard  in  the  face,  they  will  fall  helpless  into 
the  hands  of  the  operator,  instantly  lose  all  self-control, 
and  go  passively  through  any  performance,  whether  ver- 


14  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

bally  imposed  or  merely  suggested  by  a  sign."  *  The 
Chinaman,  so  phlegmatic  that  he  is  said  to  be  able  to 
sleep  "lying  across  a  wheelbarrow  with  his  mouth  open 
and  a  fly  buzzing  inside  his  mouth,"  suffers,  nevertheless, 
from  nervous  instability.  In  the  interior  of  China  in 
almost  every  village  there  develop  many  cases  of  auto- 
suggestion, which  pass  for  demoniac  possession.  "The 
most  striking  characteristic  of  these  cases  is  that  the 
subject  evidences  another  personality,  and  the  normal 
personality  for  the  time  being  is  partially  or  wholly  dor- 
mant." ^ 

The  American  Indian,  far  from  being  impassive,  is  an 
extremely  susceptible  type.  The  ghost -dance  religion 
that  spread  among  the  Indians,  1889-1892,  took  pos- 
session of  probably  sixty  thousand  souls.  Its  central 
feature  was  a  sacred  dance,  reenforced  by  hypnotizing 
operations  by  the  medicine  man  upon  dancers  who  began 
to  show  signs  of  ecstasy.  Under  the  power  of  the  emotion 
and  of  the  passes  employed  by  the  medicine  man,  first 
one  and  then  another  would  break  from  the  ring,  stagger, 
and  fall  down.  "They  kept  up  dancing  until  fully  one 
hundred  persons  were  lying  unconscious.  Then  they 
stopped  and  seated  themselves  in  a  circle,  and  as  each 
one  recovered  from  his  trance,  he  was  brought  to  the 
centre  of  the  ring  to  relate  his  experience."  ^ 
Differences  Among  the  civilizcd  races  the  Celto-Slavs  seem  to  be 
^,?^p  m^*n"^'  niore  suggestive  than  the  English  or  the  Scandinavians. 
The  demonstrativeness  of  French  and  Italian  audiences 
is  in  high  contrast  to  the  "phlegm"  of  English  and  Ger- 

*  Quoted  from  Swettenham  by  Keane,  "  Man,  Past  and  Present,"  236. 

'  Nevius,  "Demon  Possession,"  144. 

'  Fourteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  917. 


tare  men 


SUGGESTIBILITY  15 

man  audiences.  Nothing  surpasses  the  fire  and  dash  of 
a  French  cavalry  charge.  The  EngUsh  are  at  their  best 
in  individuahstic  fighting,  such  as  defence  or  retreat.  Tlie 
French  and  Irish  orators  hold  the  palm,  while  it  is  the  mobs 
of  Frenchmen  and  of  Russians  that  yield  the  best  material 
for  crowd  psychology.  Mesmerism  and,  later,  hypnotism 
originated  in  France.  Politeness  and  the  refinements  of 
intercourse  are  well-nigh  spontaneous  with  the  Irish  and 
the  French,  owing  to  their  quick  susceptibility  to  slight 
indications  of  feeling  in  the  other  person.  The  rudeness 
so  often  complained  of  in  the  English  seems  due  to  an  in- 
sensitiveness  to  certain  ranges  of  suggestion. 

3.  Age.  —  Suggestibility  is  at  its  maximum  in  young  why  the 
children,  and  it  is  said  that  most  children  above  the  ase  ^^^^^^^ 

r  1  •      1  1     1  "plastic" 

of  seven  are  hypnotizable.  Here  is  the  secret  of  child- 
hood's "plasticity."  The  adult  may  be  progressive,  i.e., 
open  to  new  ideas,  but  he  ought  not  to  be  plastic,  i.e., 
shaped  readily  by  whatever  happens  to  impinge  on  him. 
Juvenile  testimony  is  very  untrustworthy,  seeing  that  by 
a  series  of  skilful  leading  questions  a  child  may  be  led  to 
give  almost  any  desired  story  on  the  witness-stand.  It  is 
the  suggestibility  of  the  young  that  prompts  us  to  segregate 
youthful  offenders,  institute  juvenile  courts,  keep  vicious 
women  off  the  street,  penalize  the  dissemination  of  obscene 
literature,  outlaw  "treating,"  and  eliminate  the  commercial 
motive  from  the  sale  of  liquor. 

4.  Temperament.  —  Coe  ^  finds  those  of  the  sanguine  or  Tempera- 
the  melancholic  temperament  decidedly  more  suggestible  °^^"^ 
than  the  choleric.     Of  seventeen  persons  who  from  their 

^  Binet,  "  La  Suggestibilite,"  sets  forth  investigations  showing  a  marked 
normal  suggestibility  in  school  children. 
2  "The  Spiritual  Life,"  120. 


i6 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


Women 
more 

suggestible 
than  men 


upbringing  had  come  to  expect  a  striking  religious  trans- 
formation and  did  experience  it  (suggestibles),  twelve  were 
predominated  by  sensibility,  two  by  intellect,  and  three  by 
will.  For  twelve  persons  who  looked  for  a  conversion 
but  failed  to  experience  it  (spontaneous),  the  correspond- 
ing figures  are  two,  nine,  and  one. 

5.  Sex. — Among  the  Indian  ghost-dancers,  ''young 
women  are  usually  the  first  to  be  affected,  then  older 
women,  and  lastly  men."  Coe  finds  that  among  those 
who  definitely  seek  for  a  striking  religious  transformation, 
the  proportion  of  those  whose  expectation  is  completely  sat- 
isfied is  decidedly  greater  among  the  women.  Starbuck's 
figures,^  showing  six  times  as  many  women  as  men  converted 
at  the  regular  church  services,  indicates  the  greater  response 
of  women  to  external  suggestion.  In  conversion  "  men  dis- 
play more  friction  against  surroundings,  more  difficulty  with 
points  of  belief,  more  doubt  arising  from  educational  influ- 
ences, more  readiness  to  question  traditional  beliefs  and 
customs,  more  pronounced  tendency  to  resist  conviction, 
to  pray,  to  call  on  God,  to  lose  sleep  and  appetite."  For 
them  the  period  of  doubt  and  struggle  is  longer  than  for 
women.  Ellis  ^  points  out  that  women  are  more  hypno- 
tizable  than  men.  In  every  hypnotic  clinic  women  are  in 
a  great  majority.  One  authority  avers  that  two-thirds  of 
hysterical  women  and  only  one-fifth  of  hysterical  men  can 
be  hypnotized.  Of  360  persons  successfully  treated  by 
hypnotic  therapeutics  in  a  given  time  265  were  women,  45 
were  children,  and  only  50  were  men.  Hysteria,  the 
mental  side  of  which  is  exaggerated  suggestibility,  is  much 
more  common  in  women  than  in  men.     Women  make 

•  American  Journal  of  Psychology,  VIII,  271. 
2  "Man  and  Woman,"  ch.  XII. 


SUGGESTIBILITY  17 

the  best  mediums.  In  the  Middle  Ages  witches  were 
estimated  to  be  fifty  times  as  frequent  as  wizards.  As 
religious  leaders  women  have  been  conspicuous  in  that 
part  of  religion  which  covers  the  field  of  hypnotic  phe- 
nomena. In  women  the  stirrings  of  the  inferior  nervous 
centres  are  not  so  firmly  controlled  by  the  supreme  centre 
as  in  man.  Hence  they  are  at  once  more  suggestible 
and  more  emotional. 

The  mob  susceptibilities  in  woman  cause  many  strongly  Women 

.    1  dwarfed  by 

to  oppose  grantmg  women  more  power  m  our  social  or  ^^^j^^g  j^gj^ 
political  organization.  But  women  are  more  than  a  sex.  in  tutelage 
They  are,  in  a  sense,  a  social  class  shut  out  from  many  of 
the  bracing  and  individualizing  experiences  that  come  to 
men.  "Nowhere  in  the  world,"  declares  Professor 
Thomas,^  "do  women  as  a  class  lead  a  perfectly  free  in- 
tellectual life  in  common  with  the  men  of  the  group  unless 
it  be  in  restricted  and  artificial  groups  like  the  modern 
revolutionary  party  in  Russia."  Hence  woman  is  by  no 
means  synonymous  with  human  female.  Almost  every- 
where propriety  and  conventionality  press  more  mercilessly 
on  woman  than  on  man,  thereby  lessening  her  free- 
dom and  range  of  choice  and  dwarfing  her  will.  Indi- 
viduality develops  through  practice  in  choosing.  If 
women  are  mobbish,  it  is  largely  for  the  same  reason  that 
monks,  soldiers,  peasants,  moujiks,  and  other  rigidly 
regulated  types  are  mobbish.  Much  of  woman's  exag- 
gerated impressionability  disappears  once  she  enjoys 
equal  access  with  men  to  such  individualizing  influences 
as  higher  education,  travel,  self-direction,  professional  pur- 
suits, participation  in  intellectual  and  public  life. 

*  "Sex  and  Society,"  311. 


l8  SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

In  the  nor-  6.  Mental  Condition.  —  In  the  normal  mental  state 
indirect^  distraction,  i.e.,  absence  of  mind,  is  favorable  to  the  un- 
suggestion      critical   acceptance   of   suggestion.     The   mind   must  be 

succeeds  DCStl 

"caught  napping,"  as  it  were,  in  order  that  an  uncongenial 
suggestion  may  find  lodgment.  A  number  of  students 
are  hard  at  work  in  the  laboratory,  absent-mindedly 
whistling  a  popular  air.  An  experimenter  is  able  at  will 
to  lead  their  whistling  through  a  medley  of  well-known 
airs  without  their  being  in  the  least  aware  of  it.  Owing  to 
the  absence  of  his  hired  men  a  weil-to-do  farmer  is  bur- 
dened one  evening  with  the  task  of  milking  his  sixteen 
cows.  The  conclusion  of  his  work  at  midnight  finds  him 
in  a  "brown  study"  over  a  philosophic  problem.  He 
takes  the  eight  pails  of  milk  and  empties  them,  one  after 
another,  into  the  swill  barrel,  coming  to  realize  what  he  is 
doing  only  as  he  drains  the  last  pail !  The  "feel"  of  the 
full  milk-pails  had  suggested  "swill  barrel,"  for  one  of  his 
daily  "chores"  was  the  disposal  of  skim  milk.  An  ab- 
sent-minded professor  is  directed  by  his  wife  after  dinner 
to  go  upstairs  and  change  his  clothes  preparatory  to 
receiving  callers.  On  going  in  search  of  him  after  the 
callers  have  left,  she  finds  him  asleep  in  bed.  Undressing 
had  suggested  "bed,"  and  bed  had  suggested  "sleep." 
After  an  absorbing  discussion  in  a  group  of  smokers  a 
man  who  finds  one  cigar  enough  discovers  he  has  smoked 
four  cigars.  The  cigars  in  the  open  box  on  the  table 
virtually  suggested  "Take  me  !" 

By  one  in  the  normal  state,  then,  slantwise  suggestion  is 
far  more  likely  to  be  accepted  than  direct  suggestion,  on 
the  principle  that  a  flank  movement  succeeds  when  a 
frontal  attack  fails.  The  young  man  who  has  broken  with 
his  old  habits  and  associates  may  be  drawn  into  the  saloon 


SUGGESTIBILITY  19 

again  by  the  suggestion  from  a  chance-met  former  crony, 
"Let's  sit  down  somewhere  and  talk  over  old  times," 
when  he  would  have  declined  the  invitation,  "Come  and 
let's  have  a  drink."  Shakespeare  understood  the  effi- 
cacy of  indirect  suggestion.  The  subtlety  of  lago  con- 
sists in  his  sliding  suspicion  into  Othello's  mind  without 
drawing  attention  upon  himself.  In  Scene  III  of  Act  III 
Othello  and  lago  enter,  and  Cassio,  who  has  been  beseech- 
ing Desdemona  to  get  him  forgiven  for  his  escapade,  with- 
draws, too  shame-faced  to  meet  his  commander.  At  this 
lago  exclaims  as  if  to  himself,  — 

"  Ha  !   I  like  not  that. 

0th.   What  dost  thou  say? 

lago.   Nothing,  my  lord  :  or  if  —  I  know  not  what. 

0th.  Was  not  that  Cassio  parted  from  my  wife  ? 

lago.   Cassio,  my  lord !    No,  sure,  I  cannot  think  it; 
That  he  would  steal  away  so  guilty  like, 
Seeing  you  coming." 

When  they  are  left  alone  after  Desdemona's  successful 
intervention  on  Cassio's  behalf,  lago,  with  every  appear- 
ance of  reticence,  contrives  to  scatter  fresh  seeds  of  sus- 
picion in  his  master's  soul. 

"  lago.   My  noble  lord,  — 

0th.  What  dost  thou  say,  lago? 

lago.   Did  Michael  Cassio,  when  you  woo'd  my  lady, 

know  of  your  love? 
0th.   He  did,  from  first  to  last:  why  dost  thou  ask? 
lago.   But  for  a  satisfaction  of  my  thought ; 
No  further  harm. 

0th.  Why  of  thy  thought,  lago? 


20  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

lago.   I  did  not  think  he  had  been  acquainted  with  her. 

Oth.   O,  yes,  and  went  between  us  very  oft. 

lago.   Indeed ! 

Oth.   Indeed  !  Ay,  indeed ;  discern'st  thou  aught  in  that  ? 
Is  he  not  honest  ? 

lago.  Honest,  my  lord? 

Oth.  Honest,  ay,  honest. 

lago.   My  lord,  for  aught  I  know. 

Oth.   What  dost  thou  think  ? 

lago.  Think,  my  lord  ! 

Oth.  Think,  my  lord  ! 

By  heaven,  he  echoes  me 
As  if  there  were  some  monster  in  his  thought 
Too  hideous  to  be  shown.     Thou  dost  mean  something ; 
I  heard  thee  say  but  now,  thou  likest  not  that, 
When  Cassio  left  my  wife  :  What  didst  not  like  ? 
And  when  I  told  thee  how  he  was  in  my  counsel 
In  my  whole  course  of  wooing,  thou  criedst,  "Indeed  !" 
And  didst  contract  and  purse  thy  brow  together, 
As  if  thou  hadst  shut  up  in  thy  brain 
Some  horrible  conceit :  If  thou  dost  love  me, 
Show  me  thy  thought. 

lago.   My  lord,  you  know  I  love  you. 

Oth.  I  think  thou  dost. 

And  for  I  know  thou'rt  full  of  love  and  honesty 
And  weigh'st  thy  words  before  thou  givest  them  breath, 
Therefore  these  stops  of  thine  fright  me  the  more : 
For  such  things  in  a  false  disloyal  knave 
Are  tricks  of  custom ;   but  in  a  man  that's  just 
They're  close  dilations  working  from  the  h^art. 
That  passion  cannot  rule. 

lago.  For  Michael  Cassio 


SUGGESTIBILITY  21 

I  dare  be  sworn  I  think  that  he  is  honest. 

0th.   I  think  so  too. 

lago.  Men  should  be  what  they  seem ; 

Or  those  that  be  not,  would  they  might  seem  none  1 

Oth.   Certain,  men  should  be  what  they  seem. 

lago.   Why  then  I  think  Cassio's  an  honest  man. 

Oth.   Nay,  yet  there's  more  in  this; 
I  prithee,  speak  to  me  as  to  thy  thinkings, 
As  thou  dost  ruminate,  and  give  thy  worst  of  thoughts 
The  worst  of  words." 

In  like  manner,  by  indirect  suggestion,  veering  more 
and  more  to  direct  suggestion  as  they  come  under  his  sway, 
Mark  Antony  stirs  up  the  Roman  populace  against  the 
"honorable  men"  who  have  slain  Caesar. 

Fasting  heightens  susceptibility  to  hallucination  and  Fasting 
suggestion.  The  universally  recommended  regimen  for  sug|estibii- 
hearing  voices,  experiencing  ecstatic  states,  and  "seeing  ity 
God"  is  fasting.  There  was  an  ancient  saying,  "The 
stuffed  prophet  shall  not  see  or  know  secret  things."  The 
Indian  boy  about  the  time  of  puberty  fasts  till  he  is  vouch- 
safed a  vision  of  his  "Manitou."  In  the  earlier  days  the 
negro  "seekers"  fasted  in  order  to  experience  "conver- 
sion." Savage  peoples  employ  fasting,  solitude,  and  phys- 
ical exhaustion  induced  by  watching,  dancing,  whirling, 
shouting,  or  flagellation,  to  bring  on  abnormal  states  in 
which  suggestibility  is  extreme.  The  preternatural 
resonance  of  the  half-starved  human  being  has  long 
been  counted  a  sign  of  divine  afflatus,  and  the  full-fed 
healthy  man  of  stable  mentality  has  humbled  himself 
before  the  emaciated  seer  of  visions  and  dreamer  of 
dreams. 


22  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

Fatigue  and        Overstimulation  brings  on  fatigue  and  a  heightening  of 
hysteria  suggestibility.     Nordau  accounts  as  follows  for  the  preva- 

lence in  our  time  of  decadent  schools  and  movements  in 
art  and  literature. 

"  The  leading  characteristic  of  the  hysterical  is  the  dis- 
proportionate impressionability  of  their  psychic  centres. 
From  this  primary  peculiarity  proceeds  a  second  quite  as 
remarkable  and  important  —  the  exceeding  ease  with 
which  they  can  be  made  to  yield  to  suggestion.  The 
earlier  observers  always  mentioned  the  boundless  men- 
dacity of  the  hysterical  .  .  .  they  were  mistaken.  The 
hysterical  subject  does  not  consciously  lie.  He  believes 
in  the  truth  of  his  craziest  inventions.  The  morbid 
mobility  of  his  mind,  the  excessive  excitability  of  his  imag- 
ination, conveys  to  his  consciousness  all  sorts  of  queer 
and  senseless  ideas.  He  suggests  to  himself  that  these 
ideas  are  founded  on  true  perceptions,  and  believes  in  the 
truth  of  his  foolish  inventions  until  a  new  suggestion  — 
perhaps  his  own,  perhaps  that  of  another  person  —  has 
ejected  the  earlier  one.  A  result  of  the  susceptibility  of 
the  hysterical  subject  to  suggestion  is  his  irresistible  pas- 
sion for  imitation,  and  the  eagerness  with  which  he  yields 
to  all  the  suggestions  of  writers  and  artists.  When  he 
sees  a  picture,  he  wants  to  become  like  it  in  attitude  and 
dress ;  when  he  reads  a  book,  he  adopts  its  views  blindly. 
He  takes  as  a  pattern  the  heroes  of  the  novels  which  he 
has  in  his  hand  at  the  moment,  and  infuses  himself  into 
the  characters  moving  before  him  on  the  stage."  ^ 

"When  a  hysterical  person  is  loudly  and  unceasingly 
assured  that  a  work  is  beautiful,  deep,  pregnant  with  the 
future,  he  believes  in  it.     He  believes  in  everything  sug- 

'  "Degeneration,"  25,  26. 


SUGGESTIBILITY  23 

gested  to  him  with  sufficient  impressiveness.  When  a  little 
cow  girl,  Bernadette,  saw  the  vision  of  the  Holy  Virgin  in 
the  grotto  of  Lourdes,  the  woman  devotees  and  hysterical 
males  of  the  surrounding  country  who  flocked  thither  did 
not  merely  believe  that  the  hallucinant  maiden  had  herself 
seen  the  vision,  but  all  of  them  saw  the  Holy  Virgin  with 
their  own  eyes.  M.  E.  de  Goncourt  relates  that  in  1870, 
during  the  Franco-Prussian  War,  a  multitude  of  men, 
numbering  tens  of  thousands,  in  and  before  the  Bourse  in 
Paris,  were  convinced  that  they  had  themselves  seen  — 
indeed,  a  part  of  them  had  read  —  a  telegram  announcing 
French  victories  fastened  to  a  pillar  inside  the  Exchange, 
and  at  which  people  were  pointing  with  the  fingers;  but 
as  a  matter  of  fact  it  never  existed.  It  would  be  feasible 
to  cite  examples  by  the  dozen  of  illusions  of  the  senses 
suggested  to  excited  crowds.  Thus  the  hysterical  al- 
low themselves  without  more  ado  to  be  convinced  of  the 
magnificence  of  a  work,  and  even  find  in  it  beauties  of  the 
highest  kind,  unthought  of  by  the  authors  themselves  and 
the  appointed  trumpeters  of  their  fame.^ 

"The  enormous  increase  of  hysteria  in  our  days  is  partly  Nordau's 
due  ...  to  the  fatigue  of  the  present  generation.  .  .  .   theory  of 

°  r  o  latter-day 

Fatigue  constitutes  a  true  temporary  experimental  hysteria,   hysteria 
.  .  .     One  can  change  a  normal  into  a  hysterical  indi- 
vidual by  tiring  him.^  .  .  .     Now,  to  this  cause  —  fatigue 

^Ibid.,  32-33. 

^"Suggestibility  from  exhaustion  or  strain  is  a  rather  common  con- 
dition with  many  of  us.  Probably  all  eager  brain  workers  find  themselves 
now  and  then  in  a  state  where  they  are  'too  tired  to  stop.'  The  over- 
•RTought  mind  loses  the  healthy  power  of  casting  off  its  burden,  and 
seems  capable  of  nothing  but  going  on  and  on  in  the  same  painful  and 
futile  course.  One  may  know  that  he  is  accomplishing  nothing,  that 
work  done  in  such  a  state  of  mind  is  always  bad  work,  and  that  'that 


24  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

—  which,  according  to  Fere,  changes  healthy  men  into 
hysterical,  the  whole  of  civilized  humanity  has  been  ex- 
posed for  half  a  century.  All  its  conditions  of  life  have,  in 
this  period  of  time,  experienced  a  revolution  unexampled 
in  the  history  of  the  world.  Humanity  can  point  to  no 
century  in  which  the  inventions  which  penetrate  so  deeply, 
so  tyrannically,  into  the  life  of  every  individual  are  crowded 
so  thick  as  in  ours.  The  discovery  of  America,  the  Refor- 
mation, stirred  men's  minds  powerfully,  no  doubt,  and 
certainly  also  destroyed  the  equilibrium  of  thousands  of 
brains  which  lacked  staying  power.  But  they  did  not 
change  the  material  life  of  man.  He  got  up  and  lay  down, 
ate  and  drank,  dressed,  amused  himself,  passed  his  days 
and  years  as  he  had  always  been  wont  to  do.  In  our 
times,  on  the  contrary,  steam  and  electricity  have  turned 
the  customs  of  life  of  every  member  of  the  civilized  nations 
upside  down,  even  of  the  most  obtuse  and  narrow-minded 
citizen,  who  is  completely  inaccessible  to  the  impelling 
thoughts  of  the  times."  ^  "  The  humblest  village  inhabitant 
has  to-day  a  wider  geographical  horizon,  more  numerous 
and  complex  intellectual  interests,  than  the  prime  min- 
ister of  a  petty,  or  even  a  second-rate,  state  a  century  ago. 
A  cook  receives  and  sends  more  letters  than  a  university 
professor  did  formerly,  and  a  petty  tradesman  travels 
more  and  sees  more  countries  and  people  than  did  the 
reigning  prince  of  other  times.  All  these  activities,  how- 
ever, even  the  simplest,  involve  an  effort  of  the  nervous 

way  madness  lies,'  but  yet  be  too  weak  to  resist,  chained  to  the  wheel  of 
his  thought,  so  that  he  must  wait  till  it  runs  down.  And  such  a  state, 
however  induced,  is  the  opportunity  for  all  sorts  of  undisciplined  impulses, 
perhaps  some  gross  passion,  like  anger,  dread,  the  need  of  drink,  or  the 
like."  —  CooLEY,  "Human  Nature  and  the  Social  Order,"  41. 
^Ibid.,  36,  37. 


SUGGESTIBILITY  25 

system  and  a  wearing  of  tissue.  Every  line  we  read  or 
write,  every  human  face  that  we  see,  every  conversation 
we  carry  on,  every  scene  we  perceive  through  the  window 
of  the  flying  express,  sets  in  activity  our  sensory  nerves 
and  our  brain  centres.  Even  the  little  shocks  of  railway 
travelling,  not  perceived  by  consciousness,  the  perpetual 
noises,  and  the  various  sights  in  the  streets  of  a  large  town, 
our  suspense  pending  the  sequel  of  progressing  events,  the 
constant  expectation  of  the  newspaper,  of  the  postman,  of 
visitors,  cost  our  brains  wear  and  tear.  In  the  last  fifty 
years  the  population  of  Europe  has  not  doubled,  whereas 
the  sum  of  its  labors  has  increased  tenfold,  in  part  even 
fifty  fold.  Every  civilized  man  furnishes,  at  the  present 
time,  from  five  to  twenty-five  times  as  much  work  as  was 
demanded  of  him  half  a  century  ago."  ^ 

"In  the  last  twenty  years  a  number  of  new  nervous 
diseases  have  been  discovered  and  named.  They  are 
exclusively  a  consequence  of  the  present  conditions  of  civi- 
lized life.  Many  affections  of  the  nervous  system  already 
bear  a  name  which  implies  that  they  are  a  direct  conse- 
quence of  certain  influences  of  modern  civilization.  The 
terms  'railway-spine'  and  'railway-brain,'  which  the 
English  and  American  pathologists  have  given  to  certain 
states  of  these  organs,  show  that  they  recognize  them  as 
due  .  .  .  partly  to  the  constant  vibrations  undergone  in 
railway  travelling.  Again,  the  great  increase  in  the  con- 
sumption of  narcotics  and  stimulants  has  its  origin 
unquestionably  in  the  exhausted  systems  with  which 
the  age  abounds."  ^ 

The  writer  doubts  the  soundness  of  Nordau's  interpre-  An  aitema- 
tation.     It  is  more  likely  that  the  literary  and  aesthetic  tiveexpiana- 

■^  •'  tion 

•  Ibid.,  39.  ^  Ibid.,  40,  41, 


26 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


Theory  of 

hypnotic 

phenomena 


crazes  of  our  time  are  connected  with  the  collapse  of 
time-hallowed  authorities,  are  a  part  of  the  price  we  pay 
to  ransom  our  souls  from  the  spell  of  the  past.  Innumer- 
able minds  have  parted  their  moorings  to  tradition  before 
acquiring  rudder  and  steering-wheel.  What,  then,  can  be 
their  fate  but  to  drift  about  helplessly  or  founder  miser- 
ably in  the  cross  currents  of  our  age ! 

In  the  hypnotic  trance  suggestibility  is  greatly  en- 
hanced, and  direct  suggestion  succeeds  best.  Hypnotism 
has  been  so  fully  exploited  that  I  shall  not  dilate  here 
upon  the  marvellous  obedience  of  the  subject  to  the  will 
of  the  operator,  nor  enlarge  upon  the  significance  of  retro- 
active and  post-hypnotic  suggestions.  Probably  the  most 
rational  notion  of  what  really  takes  place  in  hypnosis  is 
that  given  by  Sidis.^  "Abnormal  suggestibility  is  a  dis- 
aggregation of  consciousness,  a  slit,  a  scar,  produced  in 
the  mind,  a  crack  that  may  extend  wider  and  deeper, 
ending  at  last  in  the  total  disjunction  of  the  waking, 
guiding,  controlling  consciousness  from  the  reflex  con- 
sciousness, from  the  rest  of  the  stream  of  life."  In  normal 
suggestibility  "the  lesion  effected  in  the  body  of  conscious- 
ness is  superficial,  transitory,  fleeting.  In  abnormal  sug- 
gestibility, on  the  contrary,  the  slit  is  deep  and  lasting  — 
it  is  a  severe  gash.  In  both  cases,  however,  we  have  a 
removal,  a  dissociation  of  the  waking  from  the  subwaking, 
reflex  consciousness,  and  suggestion  being  effected  only 
through  the  latter.  It  is  the  subwaking,  the  reflex,  not 
the  waking,  the  controlling  consciousness  that  is  suggestible. 
Suggestibility  is  the  attribute,  the  very  essence  of  the  sub- 
waking, reflex  consciousness.''^ 


'The  Psychology  of  Suggestion,"  88,  89. 


SUGGESTIBILITY  27 

In  the  norma]  state  suggestion  should  be  as  indirect  as  Suggestibii- 
possible  in  order  to  catch  the  inhibitory,  waking  con-  normal  and 
sciousness  "off  its  guard,"     In  the  abnormal  state  no  cir-  intheab- 
cumspection  is  needed;  the  controlling  inhibitory,  waking 
consciousness  is  more  or   less   dormant,  the  subwaking, 
reflex  consciousness  is  exposed,  and  our  suggestions  are 
more  effective  the   more   direct  they   are.     "Suggestion 
varies  as  the  amount  of  disaggregation,  and  inversely  as 
the  unification  of  consciousness." 

The  primary  self  is  the  self  with  personality  and  will.  The  integral 

T,    •  •,  it.      •        r      n  >  •  Ti    self  and  the 

It  IS,  as  it  were,  a  synthesis  01  all  one  s  experience.  It  gub-seives 
alone  embodies  the  results  of  reflection,  and  it  alone  holds 
life  true  to  a  personal  ideal.  It  is  the  captain  of  the  ship. 
When  it  is  able  to  fight  back  the  mutinous  crew  that 
swarm  up  from  the  forecastle  —  the  appetites  and  passions 
—  and  to  hold  the  ship  to  her  course  in  spite  of  side-winds 
and  cross  currents  —  suggestions  from  without  —  we  have 
a  character.  If,  now,  this  primary  self  is  overthrown  or 
put  to  sleep,  the  subwaking  self  becomes  master  of  the 
ship.  This  self  has  little  reason,  will,  or  conscience.  It 
has  sense,  appetite,  emotion,  intelligence,  but  not  char- 
acter. It  is  imitative,  servile,  credulous,  swung  hither 
and  thither  by  all  sorts  of  incoming  suggestions.  The  life 
it  prompts  cannot  be  stable,  self-consistent,  integrated.  It 
is  low  on  the  scale  of  personality,  and  a  situation  that 
commits  to  its  hands  the  helm  of  the  individual  life  is 
fraught  with  disaster. 

One  of  the  most  important  manifestations  of  abnormal  Suggestion 
suggestibility  in  the  social  field  is  wonderworking.     Says  ^^'^  miracle 
Coe:^    "Facts  like  those  of  suggestive  healing  have  not 
failed  to  raise  the  question  whether  suggestion  may  not 

1  "The  Spiritual  Life,"  200. 


28  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

be  the  clew  to  the  miraculous  element  in  the  lives  of  the 
saints,  and  even  in  the  life  of  Christ,  to  say  nothing  of  its 
bearing  upon  the  wonderworking  features  of  other  re- 
ligions. On  the  face  of  the  stories  of  saintly  visions, 
trances,  and  revelations  one  can  certainly  read  the  im- 
print of  auto-suggestion.  Nor  must  we  stop  here.  Let 
us  consider  two  exclusive  cases  of  the  most  strange  physi- 
cal manifestations  that  have  been  known  to  accompany 
spiritual  exaltation.  Seven  hundred  years  ago  St.  Francis 
of  Assisi,  founder  of  the  Order  of  Franciscans,  after 
long  meditation  on  the  wounds  of  Christ,  found  upon 
his  own  person  sores  or  'stigmata'  corresponding  to  the 
five  wounds  of  the  Saviour.  Similarly,  in  the  third  quarter 
of  this  century,  Louise  Lateau,  a  devout  girl,  repeatedly 
shed  blood  at  the  same  points.  A  committee  of  compe- 
tent investigators,  after  carefully  examining  into  her  case, 
became  convinced  that  the  phenomena  were  genuine,  and 
free  from  intentional  deception.  But  this  very  wonder 
has  been  duplicated  in  substance  by  one  or  more  hypnotic 
subjects  through  whose  skin  blood  has  been  caused  to 
exude  by  suggestion.  Lesser  phenomena  of  the  same 
class,  such  as  the  production  of  redness,  inflammation, 
and  swelling,  have  been  repeatedly  witnessed." 
Suggestion  Certain  verified  feats  of  Indian  jugglery  give  color  to 

in  Onentai     ^^le  belief  that  in  the  art  of  hypnotism  —  as  distinct  from 

magic  _  ^         -^  '■    ^ 

the  scientific  comprehension  of  it  —  the  Oriental  adepts 
are  far  in  advance  of  anything  yet  attained  in  our  psycho- 
pathic clinics.     Says  Bose :  *  — 

"Dr.  Hensoldt  saw  'in  the  centre  of  one  of  the  largest 
squares  in  Agra  a  Yogi  plant  a  mango  —  an  edible 
tropical  fruit  about  the  size  of  a  large  pear  growing  on  a 

^  "Hindu  Civilization  during  British  Rule,"  II,  152. 


SUGGESTIBILITY  29 

tree  which  reaches  a  height  of  from  forty  to  one  hundred 
and  twenty  feet.  The  Yogi  dug  a  hole  in  the  ground 
about  six  inches  deep,  placed  the  mango  in  it,  and  covered 
it  with  earth.  ...  I  was  startled  to  see  in  the  air  above 
the  spot  where  the  mango  had  been  buried  the  form  of 
a  large  tree,  at  first  rather  indistinctly,  presenting  as  it 
were  mere  hazy  outlines,  but  becoming  visibly  more  dis- 
tinct, until  at  length  there  stood  out  as  natural  a  tree  as 
ever  I  had  seen  in  my  life  —  a  mango  tree  about  fifty  feet 
high  and  in  full  foliage,  with  mangoes  on  it.  All  this 
happened  within  five  minutes  of  the  burying  of  the  fruit 
.  .  .  And  yet  there  was  something  strange  about  this 
tree,  a  weird  rigidness,  not  one  leaf  moving  in  the  breeze. 
.  .  .  Another  curious  feature  I  noticed  —  the  leaves 
seemed  to  obscure  the  sun's  rays.  ...  It  was  a  tree 
without  a  shadow.' 

"As  he  approached  it  it  faded,  but  grew  clear  again  as 
he  receded  to  his  original  position;  but  on  his  retreating 
beyond  that  point  it  again  faded.  'Each  individual  saw 
the  tree  only  from  the  place  where  he  stood.'  The  English 
officers  not  present  from  the  commencement  saw  nothing 
at  all.  Then  the  Yogi  preached  —  so  absorbingly  that 
Dr.  Hensoldt  'seemed  to  forget  time  and  space.'  He  con- 
sequently did  not  notice  the  disappearance  of  the  tree. 
When  the  Yogi  ceased  speaking  the  tree  had  gone.  Then 
he  dug  up  the  mango  he  had  buried.  This  mango  feat  he 
saw  five  times.  Before  the  palace  of  the  Guikwar  of 
Baroda  'in  the  open  air  and  in  broad  daylight,'  Dr. 
Hensoldt  declares  he  saw  for  the  first  time  —  he  saw  it 
thrice  subsequently  —  the  celebrated  rope  trick.  A  Yogi, 
after  preaching  a  most  impressive  sermon,  'took  a  rope 
about  fifteen  feet  long  and  perhaps  an  inch  thick.     One 


30  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

end  of  this  rope  he  held  in  his  left  hand,  while  with  the 
right  he  threw  the  other  end  up  in  the  air.  The  rope  in- 
stead of  coming  down  again  remained  suspended,  even 
after  the  Yogi  had  removed  his  other  hand,  and  it  seemed 
to  have  become  as  rigid  as  a  pillar.  Then  the  Yogi 
seized  it  with  both  hands,  and  to  my  utter  amazement, 
climbed  up  this  rope  suspended  all  the  time,  in  defiance  of 
gravity,  with  the  lower  end  at  least  five  feet  from  the 
ground.  And  in  proportion  as  he  climbed  up  it  seemed 
as  if  the  rope  was  lengthening  out  indefinitely  above  him 
and  disappearing  beneath  him,  for  he  kept  on  climbing 
until  he  was  fairly  out  of  sight,  and  the  last  I  could  dis- 
tinguish was  his  white  turban  and  a  piece  of  this  never 
ending  rope.  Then  my  eyes  could  endure  the  glare  of 
the  sky  no  longer,  and  when  I  looked  again  he  was  gone.' 
As  an  Oriental  traveller  and  student.  Dr.  Hensoldt  con- 
cludes that  Hindu  adepts  have  '  brought  hypnotism  to 
such  a  degree  of  perfection  that,  while  under  its  influence 
our  senses  are  no  longer  a  criterion  of  the  reality  around 
us,  but  can  be  made  to  deceive  us  in  a  manner  which  is 
perfectly  amazing.'  " 
Prestige  is  7-    Souvcc  of  Suggestion.  —  One  is  most  susceptible  to 

conferred  by  sugcrestions  from  Certain  quarters  or  from  certain  people  — 

evident  "°  . 

power  from   those    clothed    with    prestige.       Prestige    is    that 

which  excites  such  wonder  or  admiration  as  to  paralyze 
the  critical  faculty.  It  is  not  the  same  at  all  stages.  The 
boy,  trying  constantly  to  do  things,  admires  most  those 
who  can  do  things  better  than  he  can  or  things  he  cannot 
do  at  all.  Says  Cooley :  ^  "His  father  sitting  at  his  desk 
probably  seems  an  inert  and  unattractive  phenomenon, 
but  the  man  who  can  make  shavings  or  dig  a  deep  hole 

*  "Human  Nature  and  the  Social  Order,"  290-293. 


SUGGESTIBILITY 


31 


is  a  hero ;  and  the  seemingly  perverse  admiration  which 
children  at  a  later  age  show  for  circus  men  and  for  the 
pirates  and  desperadoes  they  read  about,  is  to  be  explained 
in  a  similar  manner.  What  they  want  is  evident  power." 
"  The  idea  of  power  and  the  types  of  personality  which,  as 
standing  for  that  idea,  have  ascendency  over  us,  are  a 
function  of  our  own  changing  character.  At  one  stage 
of  their  growth  nearly  all  imaginative  boys  look  upon 
some  famous  soldier  as  the  ideal  man.  He  holds  this 
place  as  symbol  and  focus  for  the  aggressive,  contending, 
dominating  impulses  of  vigorous  boyhood;  to  admire 
and  sympathize  with  him  is  to  gratify,  imaginatively,  these 
impulses.  In  this  country  some  notable  speaker  and  party 
leader  often  succeeds  the  soldier  as  the  boyish  ideal;  his 
career  is  almost  equally  dominating  and  splendid,  and,  in 
time  of  peace,  not  quite  so  remote  from  reasonable  aspira- 
tions." 

"  The  simpler  and  more  dramatic  or  visually  imaginable  Kinds  and 
kinds  of  power  have  a  permanent  advantage  as  regards  ^"^^^"^^^^ 
general  ascendency.  Only  a  few  can  appreciate  the 
power  of  Darwin,  and  those  few  only  when  the  higher 
faculties  of  their  minds  are  fully  awake;  there  is  nothing 
dramatic,  nothing  appealing  to  the  visual  imagination,  in 
his  secluded  career.  But  we  can  all  see  Grant  or  Nelson 
or  Moltke  at  the  headquarters  of  their  armies,  or  on  the 
decks  of  their  ships,  and  hear  the  roar  of  their  cannons. 
They  hold  one  by  the  eye  and  by  the  swelling  of  an  emo- 
tion felt  to  be  common  to  a  vast  multitude  of  people." 

"This  need  of  a  dramatic  or  visually  imaginable  pre-  Hero-stuff 
sentation  of  power  is  no  doubt  more  imperative  in  the 
childlike  peoples  of  southern  Europe  than  it  is  in  the 
sedater  and  more  abstractly  imaginative  Teutons;   but  it 


born  leader 


32  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

is  strong  in  every  people,  and  is  shared  by  the  most  intel- 
lectual classes  in  their  emotional  moods.  Consequently 
these  heroes  of  the  popular  imagination,  especially  those 
of  war,  are  enabled  to  serve  as  the  instigators  of  a  common 
emotion  in  great  masses  of  people,  and  thus  to  produce 
in  large  groups  a  sense  of  comradeship  and  solidarity. 
The  admiration  and  worship  of  such  heroes  is  probably 
the  chief  feeling  that  people  have  in  common  in  all 
early  stages  of  civilization,  and  the  main  bond  of  social 
groups." 
Traits  of  the  The  born  leader  is  one  whose  superiority  seems  bound- 
less. If  it  is  only  relative,  if  we  can  measure  it,  if  we  can 
fathom  the  secret  of  it  and  can  see  how  we  can  finally 
attain  to  it  ourselves,  he  is  no  longer  our  hero.  In  every 
crisis  he  must  appear  to  be  master  of  the  situation,  not 
perplexed,  dubious,  or  vacillating.  His  faith  in  himself 
and  in  his  undertaking  must  appear  tremorless.  He  must 
bear  up  when  others  despair,  remain  serene  when  they  are 
agitated.  His  intelligence  must  overarch  and  reach  be- 
yond that  of  his  followers.  Not  unbroken  success,  not 
measurable  excellence,  but  the  gift  of  striking  and  stirring 
the  imagination  of  others  is,  perhaps,  the  essential  thing 
in  natural  leadership.  Cooley  ^  remarks:  "A  sense  of 
power  in  others  seems  to  involve  a  sense  of  their  inscruta- 
bility; and,  on  the  other  hand,  so  soon  as  a  person  be- 
comes plain  he  ceases  to  stimulate  the  imagination;  we 
have  seen  all  around  him,  so  that  he  no  longer  appears 
an  open  door  to  new  life."  "  The  power  of  mere  inscruta- 
bility arises  from  the  fact  that  it  gives  a  vague  stimulus 
to  thought  and  then  leaves  it  to  work  out  the  details  to 
suit  itself." 

^  "Human  Nature  and  the  Social  Order,"  313-315. 


SUGGESTIBILITY  33 

"A  strange  and  somewhat  impassive  physiognomy  is 
often,  perhaps,  an  advantage  to  an  orator,  or  leader  of 
any  sort,  because  it  helps  to  fix  the  eye  and  fascinate  the 
mind.  Such  a  countenance  as  that  of  Savonarola  may 
have  counted  for  much  toward  the  effect  he  produced. 
Another  instance  of  the  prestige  of  the  inscrutable  is  the 
fascination  of  silence,  when  power  is  imagined  to  lie  be- 
hind it.  The  very  name  of  William  the  Silent  gives  one 
a  sort  of  thrill,  whether  he  knows  anything  of  that  dis- 
tinguished character  or  not.  One  seems  to  see  a  man 
darkly  potent,  mysteriously  dispensing  with  the  ordinary 
channel  of  self-assertion,  and  attaining  his  ends  without 
evident  means.  It  is  the  same  with  Von  Moltke,  'silent 
in  seven  languages,'  whose  genius  humbled  France  and 
Austria  in  two  brief  campaigns.  And  General  Grant's 
taciturnity  undoubtedly  fascinated  the  imagination  of  the 
people  —  after  his  earlier  successes  had  shown  that  there 
was  really  something  in  him  —  and  helped  to  secure  to 
him  a  trust  and  authority  much  beyond  that  of  any  other 
of  the  Federal  generals.  It  is  the  same  with  a  personal 
reserve  in  every  form :  one  who  always  appears  to  be  his 
own  master  and  does  not  too  readily  reveal  his  deeper 
feelings,  is  so  much  the  more  likely  to  create  an  impression 
of  power.     He  is  formidable  because  incalculable." 

Acquired  prestige  is  that  due  to  proximity,  place,  ofRce,  Prestige  the 
etc.     The  ascendency  of  the  parent  in  moulding  the  char-  ^^y^^°  ""at- 
acter  of  a  child  is  due  not  alone  to  the  long  term  of  asso-  ity" 
elation,  but  also  to  the  fact  that  the  parent,  as  the  first 
adult  in  the  child's  ken,  seems  to  him  limitless  in  powers 
and  wisdom.     This  gives  the  father  a  long  lead  over 
others  and  procures  him  obedience  after  he  is  no  longer 
able  to  punish.     Prestige  of  this  kind  explains  the  "natural 


34 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


Force  vs. 
prestige  as 
inspirer  of 
political 
obedience 


authority"  of  teacher  over  pupil,  squire  over  tenant,  priest 
over  flock,  officer  over  men.  In  France  a  dashing  "man 
on  horseback"  like  General  Boulanger  has  prestige.  In 
the  East  the  hermit,  or  yogi,  is  admired  and  obeyed. 

A  government  not  founded  on  common  consent  must 
base  its  authority  on  fear  or  on  prestige.  The  latter  is 
cheaper,  and  more  satisfactory  both  to  rulers  and  ruled. 
This  is  why  authoritative  governments  always  surround 
themselves  with  prestige-conferring  pomp.  Thus  Dill  ^ 
observes : — 

"The  imperial  government  at  all  times  displayed  the 
politic  or  instinctive  love  of  monarchy  for  splendor  and 
magnificence.  ,  .  .  After  great  fires  and  desolating  wars, 
the  first  thought  of  the  most  frugal  or  the  most  lavish 
prince  was  to  restore  in  greater  grandeur  what  had  been 
destroyed.  After  the  great  conflagration  of  64  a.d., 
which  laid  in  ashes  ten  out  of  the  fourteen  regions  of 
Rome,  Nero  immediately  set  to  work  to  rebuild  the  city 
in  a  more  orderly  fashion,  with  broader  streets  and  open 
spaces.  Vespasian,  on  his  accession,  found  the  treasury 
loaded  with  a  debt  of  more  than  a  billion  and  a  half  dol- 
lars. Yet  the  frugal  emperor  did  not  hesitate  to  begin  at 
once  the  restoration  of  the  Capitol,  and  all  the  other  ruins 
left  by  the  great  struggle  of  69  a.d.  from  which  his  dynasty 
arose.  .  .  .  Titus  completed  the  Colosseum,  and  erected 
the  famous  baths.  Domitian  once  more  restored  the 
Capitol,  and  added  many  new  buildings." 

Only  popular  governments  dare  to  dispense  with  splen- 
dor and  be  "simple."  A  reappearance  of  state  and 
magnificence  in  a  government  is  good  evidence  that  it  no 
longer  expresses  the  real  will  of  the  people. 

*  "Roman  Society  from  Nero  to  Marcus  Aurelius,"  227. 


SUGGESTIBILITY  35 

8.   Duration  of  Suggestion.  —  Reiteration  of  the  same  The  efficacy 

.  ,         .  .  J-  .  i-    1   i      ii  J       i-  c  of  recurrent 

idea  m  various  forms  is  essential  to  trie  production  01  an  suggestion 
effect  upon  people  in  a  normal  state  of  mind.  It  takes 
time  for  the  orator  to  weave  his  spell.  It  is  in  the  closing 
weeks  of  the  legislative  session  that  the  tireless  lobbyist 
registers  his  triumph  over  the  scruples  of  the  legislators. 
Advertising,  to  bring  in  returns,  must  be  persevered  in; 
it  may  be  months  after  heavy  advertising  is  begun  before 
the  sales  swell  noticeably.  The  insurance  solicitor  knows 
the  efficacy  of  "follow  up"  letters  and  conversations. 
The  reiterated  phrases  of  a  church  liturgy  gradually  in- 
spire in  the  hearer  the  mood  of  worship.  It  is  a  trick  of 
balladists  to  call  up  a  certain  emotional  tone  by  a  recurring 
phrase  at  the  close  of  each  stanza.  Rossetti  uses  it  in 
"Sister  Helen,"  "Eden  Bower,"  and  "Troy  Town." 
Villon's  "Ballad  of  Dead  Ladies"  owes  its  effect  to  the 
refrain,  " But  where  are  the  snows  of  yester  year?"  Aged 
couples  exhibit  sometimes  a  startling  mental  and  moral 
resemblance  due  to  the  reciprocal  influencing  of  each  other 
for  many  years.  It  is  a  proverb  that  if  you  keep  on  throw- 
ing mud  some  of  it  will  stick.  The  reform  school,  or  re- 
formatory, requires  several  years  to  turn  out  the  "trusty." 
The  educator  estimates  his  power  to  mould  the  youth  by 
the  time  allotted  him.  Says  Mott  ^  of  the  Presbyterian 
College  at  Teng-chou  Fu,  China:  "For  over  thirty 
years.  Dr.  Calvin  Mateer  and  his  wife  devoted  the 
best  energies  of  their  lives  to  the  comparatively  small 
number  of  young  men  admitted  to  the  college.  They 
made  much  of  personal  contact  with  the  students,  and 
estimated  that  they  could  personally  and   deeply   influ- 

^  "The  Evangelization  of  the  World  in  this  Generation,"  93. 


36  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

ence  but  about  sixty  at  a  time.     The  students  were  care- 
fully  selected    and    were    kept    as    a    rule    for   several 
years." 
Moral  re-  The  officcr  demands  four  or  five  years  to  convert  the 

crysta  iza-      gutter-suipe  rccruit  into  the  finished  soldier.*     The  Ameri- 

tion  requires    "  r 

time  canization  of  the  immigrant  is  not  a  matter  of  weeks  and 

months  merely.     The  missionary  finds  that  it  is  the  first 
batch  of  converts  that  costs.     Says  Mott :  ^  — 

"In  1882,  five  years  after  the  missionaries  reached 
Uganda,  they  had  their  first  baptisms.  Up  to  the  end  of 
the  seventh  year  less  than  a  hundred  had  been  baptized. 
In  1890  the  tide  began  to  rise  more  rapidly.  Bishop  had 
meetings  in  1891  which  were  so  largely  attended  that  the 
crush  reminded  him  of  Exeter  Hall.  When  the  cathedral 
was  dedicated  the  following  year,  the  audience  numbered 
nearly  four  thousand.  In  1893,  during  the  great  revival 
led  by  Pilkington,  hundreds  were  converted.  The  in- 
fluence of  this  revival  extended  far  and  wide  in  different 
directions.  At  the  beginning  of  1894  there  were  only 
twenty  country  chapels,  but  by  the  end  of  that  year  the 
number  had  increased  to  two  hundred."  This  snowball- 
avalanche  effect  neatly  illustrates  the  laws  of  suggestibility. 
"The  wonderful  Telugu  revival  in  the  Lone  Star  Mission 
after  nearly  a  generation  of  quiet  work  still  serves  to  lift 
the  faith  of  the  Church."  ^  "  After  many  years  of  deep 
preparatory  work  in  Fukien  Province,  the  past  few  years 
have  witnessed  the  greatest  ingathering  in  the  history  of 
missions  in  China."  * 

«  ^Kipling  in  his  barrack-room  ballad  "The  'Eathen"  describes  the 

V  steps  in  the  process  of  building  up  soldierly  character,  and  the  result. 

"Seven  Seas,"   191. 

^  "  The  Evangelization  of  the  World  in  this  Generation,"  88. 
^  Ibid.,  99.  ■*  Ibid.,  100. 


SUGGESTIBILITY  37 

9.    Volume  of  Suggestion.  —  What  strikes  us  from  all  Effect  of  a 
directions  at  almost  the  same  instant  has  a  tremendous  suggestion" 
effect.     Says  Bagehot :  ^  — 

"In  'Eothen'  there  is  a  capital  description  of  how  every 
sort  of  European  resident  in  the  East,  even  the  shrewd 
merchant  and  'the  post-captain,'  with  his  bright,  wakeful 
eyes  of  commerce,  comes  soon  to  believe  in  witchcraft,^ 
and  to  assure  you,  in  confidence,  that  there  'really  is 
something  in  it.'  He  has  never  seen  anything  convincing 
himself,  but  he  has  seen  those  who  have  seen  those  who 
have  seen  those  who  have  seen.  In  fact,  he  has  lived  in 
an  atmosphere  of  infectious  belief,  and  he  has  inhaled  it. 
Scarcely  any  one  can  help  yielding  to  the  current  infatua- 
tions of  his  sect  or  party.  For  a  short  time  —  say  some 
fortnight  —  he  is  resolute ;  he  argues  and  objects ;  but, 
day  by  day,  the  poison  thrives,  and  reason  wanes.  What 
he  hears  from  his  friends,  what  he  reads  in  the  party  organ, 

^"Physics  and  Politics,"  93. 

^  Stoll  ("Suggestion  und  Hypnotismus,"  Zweite  Auflage,  416),  in 
commenting  on  the  atrocious  witch  trial  at  Zug,  Switzerland,  in  1737, 
points  out  how  completely  the  learned  judges  stood  under  the  spell  of 
the  universal  witchcraft  belief  of  their  times.  Their  judgment  was  so 
thoroughly  warped  that  they  could  not  detect  in  the  testimony  of  the 
accused  the  convincing  note  of  truth,  nor  recognize  how  perfectly  the 
account  of  themselves  the  poor  women  gave  tallied  with  their  circum- 
stances. Among  the  effects  of  Kathri  Gilli  was  a  small  bag  of  white 
powder.  Her  accuser  declared  it  was  a  poison  used  for  the  malicious 
destruction  of  cattle  whereas  Kathri  explained  that  it  was  oat  flour. 
Some  of  it  was  given  to  a  dog  without  ill  effects.  Kathri  offered  to  prove 
the  harmlessness  of  this  powder  by  partaking  of  it  herself.  Neverthe- 
less, the  experienced  judges  were  so  obsessed  by  the  witchcraft  super- 
stition that  they  saw  no  convincing  proof  in  the  experiment  with  the  dog, 
failed  to  draw  a  rational  conclusion  from  the  agreement  between  the 
assertion  of  Kathri  and  the  outcome  of  the  experiment,  and  deemed  the 
rack  a  likelier  means  of  ehciting  the  truth  of  the  matter  than  testing  the 
powder  on  Kathri  herself ! 


38  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

produces  its  effect.     The  plain,  palpable  conclusion  which 
every  one  around  him  believes  has  an  influence  greater 
and  yet  more  subtle;   that  conclusion  seems  so  solid  and 
unmistakable;    his  own  good  arguments  get  daily  more 
and  more  like  a  dream.     Soon  the  gravest  sage  shares 
the  folly  of  the  party  with  which  he  acts  and  the  sect  with 
which  he  worships." 
The  secret  of       Men  who   easily  throw   off   the    thousand    successive 
pubiico^\n-    suggestions  of  everyday  life   are   carried   off    their  feet 
ion  by  the  volume  of  suggestion  that  emanates  from  great 

numbers.  This  is  the  secret  of  the  power  of  public 
opinion.  Bryce  ^  has  set  forth  with  great  clearness  the 
effect  upon  the  individual  of  the  deliquescence  of  small 
primitive  groups  and  communities  and  their  merging  into 
a  larger  society. 
Individuality  "In  Small  and  rude  communities,  every  free  man,  or  at 
in  ear  y  j^^^^  cvcry  head  of  a  household,  feels  his  own  significance 

and  realizes  his  own  independence.  He  relies  on  himself, 
he  is  little  interfered  with  by  neighbors  or  rulers.  His 
will  and  his  action  count  for  something  in  the  conduct  of 
the  affairs  of  the  community  he  belongs  to,  yet  common 
affairs  are  few  compared  to  those  in  which  he  must  de- 
pend on  his  own  exertions.  The  most  striking  pictures  of 
individualism  that  literature  has  preserved  for  us  are 
those  of  the  Homeric  heroes,  and  of  the  even  more  terrible 
and  self-reliant  warriors  of  the  Scandinavian  Sagas,  men 
like  Ragnar  Lodbrog  and  Egil,  son  of  Skallagrim,  who 
did  not  regard  even  the  gods,  but  trusted  to  their  own 
might  and  main.  In  more  developed  states  of  society 
organized  on  an  oligarchic  basis,  such  as  were  the  feudal 
kingdoms  of  the  Middle  Ages,  or  in  socially  aristocratic 

i"The  American  Commonwealth,"  II,  ch.  LXXXIV. 


SUGGESTIBILITY  39 

countries  such  as  most  parts  of  Europe  have  remained 
down  to  our  own  time,  the  bulk  of  the  people  are  no 
doubt  in  a  dependent  condition,  but  each  person  derives 
a  certain  sense  of  personal  consequence  from  the  strength 
of  his  group  and  of  the  person  or  family  at  the  head  of  it. 
Moreover,  the  upper  class,  being  the  class  which  thinks 
and  writes,  as  well  as  leads  in  action,  impresses  its  own 
type  upon  the  character  of  the  whole  nation,  and  that 
type  is  still  individualistic,  with  a  strong  consciousness  of 
personal  free  will,  and  a  tendency  for  each  man,  if  not  to 
think  for  himself,  at  least  to  value  and  to  rely  on  his  own 
opinion. 

"Let  us  suppose,  however,  that  the  aristocratic  structure  The  rise  of 
of  society  has  been  dissolved,  that  the  old  groups  have  g^^atcoUec- 
disappeared,  that  men  have  come  to  feel  themselves  mem- 
bers rather  of  the  nation  than  of  classes,  or  groups,  or 
communities  within  the  nation,  that  a  levelling  process  has 
destroyed  the  ascendency  of  birth  and  rank,  that  large 
landed  estates  no  longer  exist,  and  that  many  persons  in 
what  was  previously  the  humbler  class  are  found  possessed 
of  property.  Under  such  conditions  of  social  equality  the 
habit  of  intellectual  command  and  individual  self-confi- 
dence will  have  vanished  from  the  leading  class,  which 
creates  the  type  of  national  character,  and  will  exist  no- 
where in  the  nation. 

"Let  us  suppose,  further,  that  political  equality  has  And  of 
gone  hand  in  hand  with  the  levelling  down  of  social  emi-  democracy 
nence."  So  that  each  feels  that  "  his  vote  or  voice  counts 
for  no  more  than  that  of  his  neighbor,  that  he  can  pre- 
vail, if  at  all,  only  by  keeping  himself  on  a  level  with  his 
neighbor  and  recognizing  the  latter's  personality  as  being 
every  whit  equal  to  his  own. 


40  SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

The  increase       "  Supposc  further  that  all  this  takes  place  in  an  enor- 
o  socia  mously  large  and  populous  country,  where  the  governing 

voters  are  counted  by  so  many  millions  that  each  indi- 
vidual feels  himself  a  mere  drop  in  the  ocean,  the  in- 
fluence which  he  can  exert  privately,  whether  by  his 
personal  gifts  or  by  his  wealth,  being  confined  to  the  small 
circle  of  his  town  or  neighborhood.  On  all  sides  there 
stretches  around  him  an  illimitable  horizon ;  and  beneath 
the  blue  vault  which  covers  that  horizon  there  is  every- 
where the  same  busy  multitude  with  its  clamor  of  mingled 
voices  which  he  hears  close  by.  In  this  multitude  his  own 
being  seems  lost.  He  has  the  sense  of  insignificance  which 
overwhelms  us  when  at  night  we  survey  the  host  of  heaven 
and  know  that  from  even  the  nearest  star  this  planet  of 
ours  is  invisible. 
The  fatalism  "When  the  sccnc  of  action  is  a  small  commonwealth, 
the  individual  voters  are  many  of  them  personally  known 
to  one  another,  and  the  causes  which  determine  their 
votes  are  understood  and  discounted.  When  it  is  a 
moderately  sized  country,  the  towns  or  districts  which 
compose  it  are  not  too  numerous  for  reckoning  to  over- 
take and  imagination  to  picture  them,  and  in  many  cases 
their  action  can  be  explained  by  well-known  reasons 
which  may  be  represented  as  transitory.  But  when  the 
theatre  stretches  itself  to  a  continent,  when  the  number 
of  voters  is  counted  by  many  millions,  the  wings  of  imagina- 
tion droop,  and  the  huge  voting  mass  ceases  to  be  thought 
of  as  merely  so  many  individual  human  beings  no  wiser 
or  better  than  one's  own  neighbors.  The  phenomena 
seem  to  pass  into  the  category  of  the  phenomena  of  nature. 
.  .  .  They  inspire  a  sort  of  awe,  a  sense  of  individual 
impotence,  like  that  which  man  feels  when  he  contem- 


of  the 
multitude 


and  numbers 


SUGGESTIBILITY  41 

plates  the  majestic  and  eternal  forces  of  the  inanimate 
world." 

It  is  perhaps  the  dwarfing  pressure  of  numbers  that  individuality 
explains  why  vast  and  populous  societies  seem  to  produce 
small  individualities,  whereas  little  societies  permit  great 
men  to  arise.  Compare  great  homogeneous  aggregations, 
such  as  Egypt,  China,  Persia,  Babylonia,  India,  with  the 
diminutive  communities  of  Judea,  the  Greek  city-states, 
the  Italian  cities  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  free  towns  of 
mediaeval  Germany,  the  Netherlands,  Scotland,  and 
Switzerland. 

SUMMARY 

All  persons  are  more  or  less  amenable  to  the  force  of  suggestion. 

Suggestibility  seems  quite  as  pronounced  among  nature  men  as 
among  culture  men. 

Experience  and  reflection  in  time  build  up  a  self  with  a  certain 
momentum  of  its  own. 

The  marked  suggestibility  of  woman  is  partly  due  to  her  nervous 
organization,  partly  to  her  subjection  to  social  pressure. 

In  the  normal  mental  state,  indirect  suggestion  succeeds  best  ;  in 
the  abnormal  state,  direct  suggestions  may  be  obeyed. 

Hypnosis  and  kindred  states  are  probably  a  temporary  abeyance 
of  the  higher  controlling  centers,  leaving  exposed  to  alien  control  the 
less  organized  and  integrated  psychoses  of  the  lower  centres. 

That  which  produces  bedazzlement  and  obedience  is  prestige.  It 
is  not  the  same  for  all  stages  of  personal  or  racial  development. 

Training  or  drill  involves  the  building  up  of  stable  habits  by 
means  of  reiterated  suggestions. 

EXERCISES 

1.  E.xplain  the  deadliness  of  the  innuendo. 

2.  How  is  it  that  with  faint  praise  one  can  damn  a  rival  more 
than  with  downright  depreciation  ? 


42  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

3.  Show  why,  in  exchange  or  diplomacy,  the  one  who  best  dis- 
sembles his  estimate  of  the  thing  he  has  and  of  the  thing  the 
other  man  has  is  likely  to  get  the  better  of  the  bargain. 

4.  Account  for  the  fact  that  the  best  way  to  get  the  offer  of 
the  coveted  position  is  to  affect  an  indifference  to  it. 

5.  Explain  why,  in  coping  with  men,  boldness  is  so  often  justi- 
fied by  the  outcome.     Is  it  so  in  coping  with  nature  ? 

6.  Why  is  it  safer,  on  meeting  a  formidable  animal,  to  stand 
than  to  run  ? 

7.  What  is  the  point  of  the  saying,  "  He  doth  protest  too  much  "  ? 

8.  Justify  by  psychology  the  advice  in  "  Joseph  Vance  "  (p.  48) : 
"  When  a  chap  thinks  you  know  he  believes  in  your  solvency,  don't 
ondeceive  him  by  orfering  him  cash.  Then  he'll  know  you 
think  he  believes  you  insolvent  and  never  give  you  a  brass  farden  0' 
credit." 

9.  Explain  the  good  moral  influence  of  certain  teachers  and  the 
utter  lack  of  influence  of  other  teachers. 

10.  Does  the  succession  of  hero  types  in  the  development  of  the 
boy  into  the  man  correspond  to  the  succession  of  folk  heroes  in  the 
rise  of  a  people  from  barbarism  to  civilization  ? 


CHAPTER   III 

THE   CROWD 

The  strength  of  multiplied  suggestion  is  at  its  maximum  individuality 
when  the  individual  is  in  the  midst  of  a  throng,  helpless  ^"dvoiun- 

"'  ^  tary  move- 

to  control  his  position  or  movements.  The  same  press-  ment 
ure  on  the  body  that  prevents  voluntary  movement  con- 
veys promptly  to  him  all  the  electrifying  swayings  and 
tremors  that  betray  the  emotions  of  the  mass.  This 
squeeze  of  the  crowd  tends  to  depress  the  self-sense.  Says 
James :  ^  — 

"In  a  sense,  then,  .  .  .  the  'Self  of  selves,'  when  care- 
fully examined,  is  found  to  consist  mainly  of  the  collec- 
tion of  these  peculiar  motions  in  the  head  and  between 
the  head  and  the  throat.  I  do  not  for  a  moment  say 
that  this  is  all  it  consists  of  .  .  .  but  I  feel  quite  sure  that 
these  cephalic  motions  are  the  portions  of  my  innermost 
activity  of  which  I  am  most  distinctly  aware.  If  the  dim 
portions  which  I  cannot  yet  define  should  prove  to  be 
like  unto  these  distinct  portions  in  me,  and  I  like  other 
men,  it  would  follow  that  our  entire  feeling  of  spiritual 
activity,  or  what  commonly  passes  by  that  name,  is  really 
a  feeling  of  bodily  activities,  whose  exact  nature  is  by 
most  men  overlooked." 

Sidis  ^  goes  further  in  declaring:  "If  anything  gives  us 
a  strong  sense  of  our  individuality,  it  is  surely  our  volun- 
tary movements.     We  may  say  that  the  individual  self  ^ 

^  "The  Principles  of  Psychology,"  I,  301. 
*  "The  Psychology  of  Suggestion,"  299. 

43 


44 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


Depression 

of  the  self 
sense  in  the 
throng 


Fixation  of 
attention 


grows  and  expands  with  the  increase  of  variety  and  in- 
tensity of  its  voluntary  activity;  and  conversely,  the  life 
of  the  individual  self  sinks,  shrinks  with  the  decrease  of 
variety  and  intensity  of  voluntary  movements."  Often  a 
furious  naughty  child  will  suddenly  become  meek  and 
obedient  after  being  held  a  moment  as  in  a  vise.  On  the 
playground  a  saucy  boy  will  abruptly  surrender  and 
"take  it  back"  when  held  firmly  on  the  ground  without 
power  to  move  hand  or  foot.  The  cause  is  not  fear,  but 
deflation  of  the  ego. 

Here,  perhaps,  is  the  reason  why  individuality  is  so 
wilted  in  a  dense  throng,  and  why  persons  of  a  highly 
developed  but  somewhat  fragile  personality  have  a  horror 
of  getting  nipped  in  a  crowd.  It  is  said  that  in  the  French 
theatre  of  the  old  regime  the  standing  portion  of  the  audi- 
ence (pit)  was  always  more  emotional  and  violent  in  its 
demonstrations  than  the  sitting  portion  (parquet),  and  that 
the  providing  of  seats  for  the  pit  spectators  greatly  quieted 
their  demeanor.  The  experienced  orator  knows  that  a 
standing  open-air  crowd  is  very  different  in  response  from  a 
seated  indoor  audience,  and  changes  his  style  accordingly. 

Nevertheless,  a  holiday  jam  in  a  railroad  station  or  at 
a  race-course  is  no  mob.  A  crowd  self  will  not  arise 
unless  there  is  an  orientation  of  attention,  expectancy,  a 
narrowing  of  the  field  of  consciousness  that  excludes  dis- 
turbing impressions.  When  a  crowd  is  entering  the 
critical  state,  we  hear  of  "strained  attention,"  "sea  of  up- 
turned faces,"  "bated  breath,"  "ominous  hush,"  "a 
silence  such  that  you  can  hear  a  fly  buzz  or  a  pin  drop." 
The  following  newspaper  account  *  of  a  Paderewski 
matinee  shows   the   role  of  expectancy   and   inhibition : 

'See  Sidis,  "The  Psychology  of  Suggestion,"  301. 


THE   CROWD  45 

"  There  is  a  chatter,  a  rustling  of  programmes,  a  waving  of 
fans,  a  nodding  of  feathers,  a  general  air  of  expectancy, 
and  the  lights  are  lowered.  A  hush.  All  eyes  are  turned 
to  a  small  door  leading  on  to  the  stage;  it  is  opened. 
Paderewski  enters.  ...  A  storm  of  applause  greets  him, 
.  .  .  but  after  it  comes  a  tremulous  hush  and  a  prolonged 
sigh,  .  .  .  created  by  the  long,  deep  inhalation  of  upward 
of  three  thousand  women.  .  .  .  Paderewski  is  at  the 
piano.  .  .  .  Thousands  of  eyes  watch  every  common- 
place movement  [of  his]  through  opera-glasses  with  an 
intensity  painful  to  observe.  He  the  idol,  they  the  idola- 
ters. .  .  .  Toward  the  end  of  the  performance  the  most 
decorous  women  seem  to  abandon  themselves  to  the  in- 
fluence. .  .  .  There  are  sighs,  sobs,  the  tight  clinching 
of  the  palms,  the  bowing  of  the  head.  Fervid  exclama- 
tions :  'He  is  my  master !'  are  heard  in  the  feminine  mob." 

An  excited  throng  easily  turns  mob  because  excitement  Excitement 
weakens  the  reasoning  power  and  predisposes  to  sugges- 
tions in  line  with  the  master  emotion.  Thus,  frightened 
persons  are  peculiarly  susceptible  to  warnings,  angry  per- 
sons to  denunciations,  expectant  persons  to  promises, 
anxious  persons  to  rumors.  An  agitated  gathering  is 
tinder,  and  the  throngs  that  form  in  times  of  public  ten- 
sion are  very  liable  to  become  mobs. 

Although  crowding,   fixation  of  attention,  and  excite-  Elements  in 
ment  exalt  suggestibility,  all  members  of  the  crowd  do  tj^^t^p°ogt 
not  experience  this  in  the  same  degree.     There  are  at  by  the 
least  two  descriptions  of  people  who,  in  the  give-and-take  sug|estibUity 
of  the  throng,  are  more  likely  to  impose  suggestions  than 
to  accept  them.     The  intelligent  are  able  to  criticise  and 
appraise  the  suggestions  that  impinge  upon  them.     They 
are  quick  to  react  if  a  suggestion  clashes  with  their  in- 


46 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


Emotion- 
alism of  the 
crowd 


Arrest  of 
thought  in 
the  crowd 


terests  or  their  convictions,  whereas  the  ignorant  are  at 
the  mercy  of  the  leader  or  the  claque,  and  may  be  stam- 
peded into  a  course  of  action  quite  at  variance  with  their 
real  desires.  The  fanatical  and  impassioned  are  little 
responsive  to  impressions  from  without,  because  of  their 
inner  tension.  Being  determined  from  within,  they  emit 
powerful  suggestions,  but  are  hard  to  influence.  There  is 
thus  a  tendency  for  the  warped  and  inflamed  members  to 
impart  their  passion  to  the  rest  and  to  sweep  along  with 
them  the  neutral  and  indifferent.  This  is  why,  as  the 
crowd  comes  under  the  hypnotic  spell,  the  extremists  gain 
the  upper  hand  of  the  moderates. 

Feelings,  having  more  means  of  vivid  expression,  run 
through  the  crowd  more  readily  than  ideas.  Masked  by 
their  anonymity,  people  feel  free  to  give  rein  to  the  expres- 
sion of  their  feelings.  To  be  heard,  one  does  not  speak; 
one  shouts.  To  be  seen,  one  does  not  simply  show 
one's  self;  one  gesticulates.  Boisterous  laughter,  frenzied 
objurgations,  frantic  cheers,  are  needed  to  express  the 
merriment  or  wrath  or  enthusiasm  of  the  crowd.  Such 
exaggerated  signs  of  emotion  cannot  but  produce  in  sug- 
gestible beholders  exaggerated  states  of  mind.  The 
mental  temperature  rises,  so  that  what  seemed  hot  now 
seems  lukewarm,  what  felt  tepid  now  feels  cold.  The 
intensifying  of  the  feelings  in  consequence  of  reciprocal 
suggestion  will  be  most  rapid  when  the  crowd  meets  under 
agitating  circumstances.  In  this  case  the  unbridled  mani- 
festation of  feeling  prevails  from  the  first,  and  the  psychic 
fermentation  proceeds  at  a  great  rate. 

To  the  degree  that  feeling  is  intensified,  reason  is  para- 
lyzed. In  general,  strong  emotion  inhibits  the  intellectual 
processes.     In  a  sudden  crisis  we    expect  the  sane   act 


THE   CROWD  47 

from  the  man  who  is  "cool,"  who  has  not  "lost  his  head." 
Now,  the  very  hurly-burly  of  the  crowd  tends  to  distrac- 
tion. Then,  the  high  pitch  of  feeling  to  which  the  crowd 
gradually  works  up  checks  thinking  and  results  in  a 
temporary  imbecility.  There  is  no  question  that,  taken 
herdwise,  people  are  less  sane  and  sensible  than  they  are 
dispersed. 

In  a  real  deliberative  assembly  there  is  a  possibility  The  crowd 
that  the  best  thought,  the  soundest  opinion,  the  shrewdest  ^^^'^^^ 
plan  advanced  from  any  quarter  will  prevail.  Where 
there  is  cool  discussion  and  leisurely  reflection,  ideas 
struggle  with  one  another,  and  the  fittest  are  accepted  by 
all.  In  the  fugitive,  structureless  crowd,  however,  there 
can  be  no  fruitful  debate.  Under  a  wise  leader  the  crowd 
may  act  sagaciously.  But  there  is  no  guarantee  that  the 
master  of  the  crowd  shall  be  wiser  than  his  followers. 
The  man  of  biggest  voice  or  wildest  language,  the  aggres- 
sive person  who  first  leaps  upon  a  table,  raises  aloft  a 
symbol,  or  utters  a  catching  phrase,  is  likely  to  become 
the  bell-wether. 

Under  these  conditions  —  heightened  suggestibility  and  The  psychic 
emotion,    arrested   thinking  —  three   things   will   happen  Process  in 
when  an  impulse,  whether  emanating  from  a  spectacle, 
an  event,  or  a  leader,  runs  through  the  crowd. 

I.  Extension.  —  By  sheer  contagion  it  extends  to  unsym- 
pathetic persons.  Thus  by-standing  scoffers  have  been 
drawn  into  a  revival    maelstrom,^  law-abiding    persons 

^  Davenport  tells  of  a  young  man  who  happened  to  be  standing  as  a 
spectator  on  the  fringe  of  a  Southern  camp-meeting  of  two  thousand 
people.  "He  had  had  no  religious  experience  and  at  that  time  did  not 
wish  any.  The  crowd  was  laboring  under  great  religious  excitement, 
and  reflex  phenomena  were  abundantly  in  evidence.  Suddenly  my 
friend  found  himself  with  his  hands  pressed  against  his  lungs,  shouting, 


48  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

have  been  sucked  into  the  vortex  of  a  brutal  lynching  bee, 
hard-headed  workingmen  with  dependent  families  have 
been  stampeded  into  a  sympathetic  strike.  In  his  story 
"On  the  City  Wall,"  Kipling  introduces  a  young  native 
just  back  to  Madras  from  Oxford.  He  is  a  typical  prod- 
uct of  Western  culture,  polished,  sceptical,  utterly  aloof 
from  his  people,  and  contemptuous  of  the  foolish  religious 
riots  between  Hindu  and  Mohammedan  fanatics.  He 
shows  us  this  same  scoffer  a  few  hours  later  fighting 
furiously  in  the  thick  of  the  riot  on  behalf  of  his  Moham- 
medan coreligionists  for  whose  faith  he  cares  not  a 
straw.  Sidis  ^  cites  an  incident  of  the  riots  of  certain 
military  colonists  in  Russia  in  1831:  "While  Sokolov 
was  fighting  hard  for  his  life,  I  saw  a  corporal  lying  on 
the  piazza  and  crying  bitterly.  On  my  question,  'Why 
do  you  cry?'  he  pointed  in  the  direction  of  the  mob  and 
exclaimed,  'Oh,  they  do  not  kill  a  commander,  but  a 
father ! '  I  told  him  that  instead  of  it  he  should  rather 
go  to  Sokolov's  aid.  He  rose  at  once  and  ran  to  the  help 
of  his  commander.  A  little  later  when  I  came  with  a  few 
soldiers  to  Sokolov's  help,  I  found  the  same  corporal 
striking  Sokolov  with  a  club.     'Wretch,  what  are  you 

'Hallelujah!'  at  the  top  of  his  voice."  In  a  Southern  congregation 
brought  to  the  revival  point  by  the  preaching  of  Dr.  Alexander,  "the 
sympathetic  wave  spread  from  the  centre  to  the  circumference,  and  the 
whole  audience  was  swayed  like  a  forest  in  a  mighty  wind.  Dr.  Alex- 
ander himself  is  on  record  as  having  found  it  necessary  to  put  forth  a 
conscious  effort  of  resistance  in  order  to  hold  himself  steady  in  the  vio- 
lence of  the  storm,  and  he  testified  that  the  old  tobacco  planters  in  the 
rear,  who  had  not  listened  to  one  word  of  the  sermon,  displayed  tremulous 
emotion  in  every  muscle  of  their  brawny  faces,  while  the  tears  coursed 
down  their  wrinkled  cheeks."  —  "  Primitive  Traits  in  Religious  Revivals," 
226,  227. 

'  "The  Psychology  of  Suggestion,"  305. 


THE   CROWD  49 

doing?  Have  you  not  told  me  he  was  to  you  like  a 
father?'  To  which  he  answered,  'It  is  such  a  time,  your 
honor;  all  the  people  strike  him;  why  should  I  keep 
quiet?'"  An  English  prison  matron  confesses  that 
sometimes  when  she  hears  the  women  under  her  care 
"break  out"  and  commence  smashing  and  destroying 
everything  they  can  get  hold  of,  it  is  as  much  as  she 
can  do  to  restrain  herself  from  joining  in. 

2.  Intensification.  —  Each  individual  impressed  feels 
more  intensely  the  moment  he  perceives  that  so  many 
others  share  his  feeling.  Hence,  a  secondary  wave,  a 
reverberation,  runs  through  the  crowd  that  is  becoming 
aware  of  itself. 

3.  Predisposition.  —  The  perceived  unison  begets  a  sym- 
pathy that  makes  like  response  easier  the  next  time. 

Since  each  fulfilled  suggestion  increases  the  emotion  of  Time  needed 
the  mob  in  volume  and  pitch,  the  passing  of  the  crowd  ^o^^'^eemer- 

c  ^  c  o  gence  of  a 

into  the  mob  is  more  or  less  gradual.  A  mob  is  a  forma-  crowd  self 
tion  that  takes  time.  The  revivalist  expects  little  response 
during  his  first  half-hour.  No  matter  how  brilliant  his 
work  in  the  earlier  scenes,  an  actor  will  not  elict  the  wildest 
demonstrations  from  his  audience  until  the  closing  acts. 
There  are  always  several  steps  in  the  decline  of  an  orderly 
crowd  into  a  riotous  mob.  It  is  not  a  single  blow,  but  a 
quick  succession  of  shocks,  that  throws  an  army  into  a 
panic.  In  all  these  cases,  with  the  growing  fascination 
of  the  mass  for  the  individual,  his  consciousness  con- 
tracts to  the  pin-point  of  the  immediate  moment,  and 
the  volume  of  suggestion  needed  to  start  an  impulse  on  its 
conquering  career  becomes  less  and  less.  He  becomes 
automatic,  in  a  way  unconscious.  The  end  is  a  tranced 
impressionable  condition  akin  to  hypnosis. 


50  SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

The  Ken-  There  is  no  assignable   limit  to   the   mastery  of   the 

^■^^  7  ,  crowd  self  over  the  selves  of  the  members.     McMaster  * 

Revival 

thus  describes  a  famous  Kentucky  revival,  1 799-1800. 
"  One  of  the  brothers  was  irresistibly  impelled  to  speak.  .  .  . 
The  words  which  then  fell  from  his  lips  roused  the  people 
before  him  'to  a  pungent  sense  of  sin.'  Again  and  again 
the  woman  shouted,  and  would  not  be  silent.  He  started  to 
go  to  her.  The  crowd  begged  him  to  turn  back.  Some- 
thing within  him  urged  him  on,  and  he  went  through 
the  house  shouting  and  exhorting  and  praising  God. 
In  a  moment  the  floor,  to  use  his  own  words,  '  was  covered 
with  the  slain.'  Their  cries  for  mercy  were  terrible  to 
hear.  Some  found  forgiveness,  but  many  went  away 
'spiritually  wounded'  and  suffering  unutterable  agony 
of  soul.  Nothing  could  allay  the  excitement.  Every 
settlement  along  the  Green  River  and  the  Cumberland 
was  full  of  religious  fervor.  Men  fitted  their  wagons 
with  beds  and  provisions,  and  travelled  fifty  miles  to  camp 
upon  the  ground  and  hear  him  preach.  The  idea  was 
new;    hundreds  adopted  it,  and  camp-meetings  began. 

"  At  no  time  was  the  '  falling  exercise '  so  prevalent  as  at 
night.  Nothing  was  then  wanting  that  could  strike 
terror  into  minds  weak,  timid,  and  harassed.  The  red 
glare  of  the  camp-fires  reflected  from  hundreds  of  tents 
and  wagons ;  the  dense  blackness  of  the  flickering  shadows, 
the  darkness  of  the  surrounding  forest,  made  still  more 
terrible  by  the  groans  and  screams  of  the  'spiritually 
wounded,'  who  had  fled  to  it  for  comfort;  the  entreaty 
of  the  preachers;  the  sobs  and  shrieks  of  the  downcast 
still  walking  through  the  dark  valley  of  the  Shadow  of 
Death ;  the  shouts  and  songs  of  praise  of  the  happy  ones 
» "  History  of  the  People  of  the  United  States,"  II,  578-582. 


THE  CROWD  51 

who  had  crossed  the  Delectable  Mountains,  had  gone 
on  through  the  fogs  of  the  Enchanted  Ground,  and  en- 
tered the  Land  of  Beulah,  were  too  much  for  those  over 
whose  minds  and  bodies  lively  imaginations  held  full 
sway.  The  heart  swelled,  the  nerves  gave  way,  the  hands 
and  feet  grew  cold,  and,  motionless  and  speechless,  they 
fell  headlong  to  the  ground.  In  a  moment  crowds 
gathered  about  them  to  pray  and  shout.  Some  lay  still 
as  death.  Some  passed  through  frightful  twitchings  of 
face  and  limb.  At  Cabin  Creek  so  many  fell  that,  lest 
the  multitude  should  tread  on  them,  they  were  carried 
to  the  meeting-house  and  laid  in  rows  on  the  floor.  At 
Cane  Ridge  the  number  was  three  thousand." 

"The  excitement  surpassed  anything  that  had  been 
known.  Men  who  came  to  scoff  remained  to  preach. 
All  day  and  all  night  the  crowd  swarmed  to  and  fro  from 
preacher  to  preacher,  singing,  shouting,  laughing,  now 
rushing  off  to  listen  to  some  new  exhorter  who  had  climbed 
upon  a  stump,  now  gathering  around  some  unfortunate 
who,  in  their  peculiar  language,  was  'spiritually  slain.' 
Soon  men  and  women  fell  in  such  numbers  that  it  became 
impossible  to  move  about  without  trampling  them,  and 
they  were  hurried  to  the  meeting-house.  At  no  time  was 
the  floor  less  than  half  covered.  Some  lay  quiet,  unable 
to  move  or  speak.  Some  talked,  but  could  not  move. 
Some  beat  the  floor  with  their  heels.  Some,  shrieking 
in  agony,  bounded  about,  it  is  said,  like  a  live  fish  out  of 
water.  Many  lay  down  and  rolled  over  and  over  for 
hours  at  a  time.  Others  rushed  wildly  over  the  stumps 
and  benches,  and  then  plunged,  shouting  Lost !  Lost ! 
into   the   forest. 

*'  As  the  meetings  grew  more  and  more  frequent,  this 


52  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

nervous  excitement  assumed  new  and  more  terrible  forms. 
One  was  known  as  jerking;  another,  as  the  barking  ex- 
ercise; a  third,  as  the  Holy  Laugh.  'The  jerks'  began 
in  the  head  and  spread  rapidly  to  the  feet.  The  head 
would  be  thrown  from  side  to  side  so  swiftly  that  the 
features  would  be  blotted  out  and  the  hair  made  to  snap. 
When  the  body  was  affected,  the  sufferer  was  hurled 
over  hindrances  that  came  in  his  way,  and  finally  dashed 
on  the  ground  to  bounce  about  like  a  ball.  At  camp- 
meetings  in  the  far  South,  saplings  were  cut  off  breast- 
high  and  left  'for  the  people  to  jerk  by.'  One  who 
visited  such  a  camp-ground  declares  that  about  the  roots 
of  from  fifty  to  one  hundred  saplings  the  earth  was  kicked 
up  'as  by  a  horse  stamping  flies.'" 

"From  the  nerves  and  muscles  the  disorder  passed  to 
the  mind.  Men  dreamed  dreams  and  saw  visions,  nay, 
fancied  themselves  dogs,  went  down  on  all  fours,  and  barked 
till  they  grew  hoarse.  It  was  no  uncommon  sight  to  be- 
hold numbers  of  them  gathered  about  a  tree,  barking, 
yelping,  'treeing  the  devil.'  Two  years  later,  when  much 
of  the  excitement  of  the  great  revival  had  gone  down, 
falling  and  jerking  gave  way  to  hysterics.  During  the 
most  earnest  preaching  and  exhorting,  even  sincere  pro- 
fessors of  religion  would,  on  a  sudden,  burst  into  loud 
laughter ;  others,  unable  to  resist,  would  follow,  and  soon 
the  assembled  multitude  would  join  in.  This  was  the 
'Holy  Laugh,'  and  became,  after  1803,  a  recognized 
part  of  worship." 
Psychology  Coe  ^  thus  accounts  for  the  extraordinary  phenomena 
of  the  re-       often  manifested  in  religious  assemblies.     "The  striking 

viv3,l 

psychic  manifestations  which  reach  their  climax  among 

*  "  The  Spiritual  Life,"  141-143,  146. 


THE   CROWD  53 

US  in  emotional  revivals,  camp-meetings,  and  negro  ser- 
vices have  a  direct  relation  to  certain  states  of  an  essentially 
hypnotic  and  hallucinatory  kind.  In  various  forms 
such  states  have  appeared  and  reappeared  throughout 
the  history  of  religion.  Examples  of  what  is  here  re- 
ferred to  are  found  in  the  sacred  frenzy  of  the  Bacchantes, 
the  trance  of  the  Sibyls,  the  ecstasy  of  the  Neo-Platonists, 
the  enlightenment  that  came  to  Gautama  Buddha  under 
the  sacred  Bo-tree,  the  visions  of  the  canonized  saints, 
the  absorption  into  God  experienced  by  various  mystics, 
and  the  religious  epidemics  of  the  Middle  Ages,  such  as 
tarantism  and  St.  Vitus's  dance.  All  these  and  a  multi- 
tude of  similar  phenomena  v^^ere  produced  by  processes 
easily  recognized  by  any  modern  psychologist  as  auto- 
matic and  suggestive.  Similarly,  the  phenomenon  in 
Methodist  history  known  as  the  'power'  was  induced 
by  hypnotic  processes  now  well  understood,  though  hidden 
until  long  after  the  days  of  the  Wesley s."  "The  expla- 
nation of  the  'power'  and  similar  outbreaks  is  simple. 
Under  the  pressure  of  religious  excitement  there  occurs  a 
sporadic  case  of  hallucination,  or  of  motor  automatism, 
or  of  auto-hypnotism,  taking  the  form  of  trance,  visions, 
voices,  or  catalepsy.  The  onlookers  naturally  conceive 
a  more  or  less  distressing  fear  lest  the  mysterious  power 
attack  their  own  persons.  Fear  acts  as  a  suggestion, 
and  the  more  suggestible  soon  realize  their  expectation. 
In  accordance  with  the  law  of  suggestion,  every  new  case 
adds  power  to  the  real  cause  and  presently  the  conditions 
are  right  for  an  epidemic  of  such  experiences."  "Sug- 
gestion works  in  proportion  as  it  secures  a  monopoly  of 
attention.  Let  us  ask  what,  according  to  this  law,  will 
happen  to  passably  suggestible  persons  who  submit  them- 


54 


SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 


The  crowd 
cannot  last 


The  crowd 
is  unstable 


t 


selves  to  certain  well-known  revival  practices.  Let  us 
suppose  that  the  notion  of  a  striking  transformation  has 
been  held  before  the  subject's  mind  for  days,  weeks, 
or  even  years ;  let  us  suppose  that  the  subject  has  finally 
been  induced  to  go  to  the  penitent  form;  here,  we  will 
suppose,  prayers  full  of  sympathy  and  emotional  earnest- 
ness are  offered  for  him,  and  that  everything  has  been 
so  arranged  as  to  produce  a  climax  in  which  he  will  finally 
believe  that  the  connection  between  himself  and  God  is 
now  accomplished.  The  leader  says  to  him :  '  Do  you  now 
believe  ?  Then  you  are  saved.'  Is  it  not  evident  that  this 
whole  process  favors  the  production  of  a  profound  emo- 
tional transformation  directly  through  suggestion?" 

The  crowd  self  is  ephemeral.  Not  for  long  can  it 
supersede  the  individual  self.  The  straining  of  attention 
leads  to  fatigue,  lessened  power  of  response  to  further 
suggestions.  Then,  stimuli  from  within  help  to  break 
the  spell.  Sensations  of  hunger,  cold,  and  weariness 
become  so  insistent  as  to  distract  the  attention.  Pres- 
ently the  bond  dissolves,  and  the  crowd  scatters.  Mobs 
have  been  broken  up  by  a  downpour  of  rain  or  an  alarm 
of  fixe.  The  little  Corsican  disperses  a  turbulent  crowd 
with  grape;  the  humane  philosopher  turns  a  fire  hose 
on  it.  It  is  easy  to  tell  whether  a  riot  is  a  collective  aber- 
ration or  a  work  of  intent  by  noticing  whether  the  crowd 
returns  the  next  day.  If  it  does,  there  is  more  behind 
it  than  mass  psychology. 

Whether  its  members  be  saints  or  knaves,  sages  or 
hodmen,  the  self  of  the  crowd  exhibits  certain  character- 
istics. It  is  unstable,  as  the  word  "mob"  (mobile)  in- 
dicates. Its  hero  one  moment  may  be  its  victim  the 
next.     It  may  pass  abruptly  from  reckless  courage  to 


THE   CROWD  55 

dastard  fear.  Little  things  turn  its  purpose.  Taine  * 
tells  of  a  street  mob  bent  on  hanging  a  supposed  monopo- 
lizer. By  some  words  uttered  on  his  behalf  it  was  brought 
to  embrace  him,  drink  with  him,  and  make  him  join  them 
in  a  mad  dance  about  a  liberty  pole.  At  the  close  of  the 
Paris  Commune,  a  crowd,  irritated  by  the  defiant  air  of 
one  of  the  communist  women,  howls,  "  Death  to  her  !"  An 
old  gentleman  cries,  "  No  cruelty,  after  all  it  is  a  woman  ! " 
In  a  moment  the  wrath  of  the  crowd  is  turned  on  him. 
"He  is  a  communist,  an  incendiary  !"  But  in  this  critical 
moment  the  shrill  voice  of  a  gamin  is  heard,  "Don't  hurt 
him,  she's  his  girl !"  Thereupon  a  great  burst  of  laughter 
about  the  old  gentleman,  and  he  is  saved.^ 

The  crowd   self  is  credulous.     The   "holding-off"   at-  The  crowd 
titude  is  a  kind  of  inhibition,  for  we  tend  to  believe  what  '.^  f^^eduious. 

'  irrational, 

we  hear  reiterated  with  fire.  Now,  in  a  psychological  and  simple- 
crowd,  individuals  are  "out  of  themselves."  For  them 
the  past  does  not  exist.  Rational  analysis  and  test  are 
out  of  the  question.  The  faculties  we  doubt  with  are 
asleep.  Again,  the  crowd  self  is  irrational.  It  cannot 
dissect,  weigh,  and  compare,  cannot  apply  remembered 
teachings.  Under  the  sway  of  vivid  impressions  through 
eye  or  ear  the  man  in  the  crowd  cannot  relate  his  present 
problem  to  his  previous  experiences.  His  actions  are 
near  to  reflexes.  The  crowd  self  shows  simplicity.  Like 
children  and  savages,  it  cannot  embrace  in  a  single  judg- 
ment several  factors  and  details.  It  sees  only  one  aspect 
of  a  thing  at  a  time.^    It  may  face  about  completely  when 

*  "Revolution  Franfaise,"  II,  145. 
'  Tarde,  "Essais  et  melanges  sociologiques,"  22. 

'  In  Cincinnati,  in  1884,  a  mob,  outraged  by  the  acquittal  of  a  brutal 
murderer,  burned  the  Court  House  when  balked  of  their  lynching  purpose. 


minded 


56 


SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 


The  crowd 
lacks  virtue 


The  crowd 

is  the  lowest 
form  of 
association 


some  other  aspect  is  thrown  into  the  focus  of  its  attention. 
Unable  to  think  things  in  their  actual  complexity,  the 
crowd  trusts  to  impressions  or  prejudices,  if  it  is  hetero- 
geneous ;  to  glittering  generalities  or  abstract  principles  if 
it  is  a  political  or  legislative  assembly. 

Finally,  the  crowd  self  is  immoral.  To  be  sure,  it  is 
capable  of  courage  and  generosity,  even  of  honesty.  The 
perpetrators  of  the  September  massacres  in  the  French 
Revolution  faithfully  turned  in  the  money  and  valuables 
found  on  their  victims,  while  the  mob  that  invaded  the 
Tuileries  in  1848  refrained  from  carrying  away  any  of 
the  priceless  objects  they  saw.  The  crowd  is  emotional, 
and  some  of  its  emotions  may  be  moral.  On  the  whole, 
however,  the  virtues  grow  on  an  intellectual  stalk.  Right 
conduct  is  thought-out  conduct.  Conscience  is  a  way  of 
thinking  things.  Now,  thronging  paralyzes  thought, 
and  while  the  crowd  may  be  sentimental  and  heroic,  it 
will  lack  the  virtues  born  of  self-control  —  veracity, 
prudence,  thrift,  perseverance,  respect  for  another's  rights, 
obedience  to  law. 

It  is  safe  to  conclude  that  amorphous,  heterogeneous 
gatherings  are  morally  and  intellectually  below  the  average 
of  their  members.  This  manner  of  coming  together 
deteriorates.  The  crowd  may  generate  moral  fervor, 
but  it  never  sheds  light.  If  at  times  it  has  furthered 
progress,  it  is  because  the  mob  serves  as  a  battering-ram 
to  raze  some  mouldering,  bat-infested  institution  and  clean 

Their  idea  was  to  rebuke  tricky,  dishonest  lawyers  by  destroying  a  build- 
ing which  had  become  a  den  of  corruption  rather  than  a  temple  of  justice. 
A  moment's  cool  reflection  would  have  shown  them  that  by  burning  the 
records  of  a  century  regarding  wills,  marriages,  property  transfers, 
mortgages,  etc.,  they  would  produce  enough  litigation  to  fatten  the  hated 
lawyers  for  a  generation. 


THE   CROWD  57 

the  ground  for  something  better.  This  better  will  be  the 
creation  of  gifted  individuals  or  of  deliberative  bodies, 
never  of  anonymous  crowds.  It  is  easier  for  masses  to 
agree  on  a  Nay  than  on  a  Yea.  Hence  crowds  destroy 
despotisms,  but  never  build  free  states ;  abolish  evils,  but 
never  found  works  of  beneficence.  Essentially  atavistic 
and  sterile,  the  crowd  ranks  as  the  lowest  of  the  forms  of 
human  association. 

A  free  people  is  obliged  to  settle  matters  of  common  Howdeiib- 
concern  in  a  deliberative  assembly.     But  the  big  assembly  ^""^^'^^ 

•'  o  J     assemblies 

skirts  ever  the  slippery  incline  that  leads  down  to  mob  escape  the 
madness,  and  guard-rails  in  the  form  of  fixed  modes  of  ^™^  vortex 
procedure  are  necessary  to  save  it  a  misstep.  Its  chief 
protection  is  the  Parliamentary  Rules  of  Order,  wrought 
out  in  the  venerable  House  of  Commons  and  certainly 
not  the  least  among  England's  gifts  to  the  world.  The 
rules  requiring  that  a  meeting  shall  have  a  chairman, 
that  the  chairman  shall  not  take  part  in  debate,  that  no 
one  shall  speak  without  recognition,  that  the  speaker 
shall  address  the  chair  and  not  the  assembly,  that  remarks 
shall  pertain  to  a  pending  motion,  that  personalities 
shall  be  taboo,  and  that  members  shall  not  be  referred  to 
by  name  —  what  are  they  but  so  many  devices  to  keep 
the  honey-tongued  or  brazen-throated  crowd  leader 
from  springing  to  the  centre  of  the  stage  and  weaving 
his  baleful  spells  !  The  rules  that  the  hearers  be  in 
order,  that  they  remain  seated,  that  they  forbear  to  inter- 
rupt, that  they  patiently  listen  to  all  speakers  regularly 
recognized,  and  that  their  signs  of  approval  or  dis- 
approval be  decorous  —  are  not  these  so  many  guard- 
rails to  help  the  assembly  get  safely  by  certain  vertigi- 
nous moments? 


58 


SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 


Mob  mind 
in  city 
dwellers 


The  city 
facilitates 
inter-sugges- 
tion 


It  has  long  been  recognized  that  the  behavior  of  city 
populations  under  excitement  shows  the  famihar  char- 
acteristics of  the  mob,  quite  apart  from  any  thronging. 
Here  we  get  unanimity,  impulsiveness,  exaggeration  of 
feeling,  excessive  credulity,  fickleness,  inability  to  reason, 
and  sudden  alternations  of  boldness  and  cowardice. 
Here,  indeed,  are  the  chief  counts  in  the  indictment  which 
historians  have  drawn  against  the  city  democracies  of  old 
Greece  and  mediaeval  Italy. 

These  faults  are  due  in  part  to  the  nervous  strain  of 
great  cities.  The  bombardment  of  the  senses  by  in- 
numerable impressions  tends  to  produce  neurasthenia, 
the  peculiar  affliction  of  the  city  dweller.  Moreover, 
in  the  sheltered  life  of  the  city  live  many  degenerates 
that  would  be  unsparingly  eliminated  by  the  sterner 
conditions  of  existence  in  the  country.  In  the  main, 
however,  the  behavior  of  city  dwellers  under  excitement 
can  best  be  understood  as  the  result  of  mental  contacts 
made  possible  by  easy  communication.  Even  in  the  crowd, 
the  main  thing  is  the  contact  of  minds.  Let  this  be  given 
and  the  three  consequences  above  pointed  out  must  fol- 
low. An  expectant  or  excited  man  learns  that  thousands 
of  his  fellow-townsmen  have  been  seized  by  a  certain  strong 
feeling  and  meets  with  their  expression  of  this  feeling. 
Each  of  these  townsmen  learns  how  many  others  are 
feeling  as  he  does.  Each  stage  in  the  subsequent  growth 
of  this  feeling  in  extent  and  in  intensity  is  perceived,  and 
so  fosters  sympathy  and  a  will  to  "go  along."  Will  we 
not  inevitably,  by  this  series  of  interactions,  get  that  "out"- 
look  which  characterizes  the  human  atom  in  the  mob  ? 

Says  Jones :^    "Inasmuch  as  the  prevailing  economic 

'  "  Economic  Crises,"  204-205. 


THE   CROWD  59 

system  enforces  intimate  association  in  a  sense  in  which  Bearing  of 
no  previous  system  ever  did,  this  class  of  influences  tend-  ™^"*^i  '"- 

^  •'  '  timacy  on 

ing  to  vitiate  the  economic  reasoning  of  those  who  are  booms  and 
subject  to  market  influences  may  well  demand  serious  ^^^^^^ 
attention.  Businesses  are  being  increasingly  concen- 
trated in  large  cities,  and  especially  are  those  who  con- 
trol them  being  closely  compacted  together  in  the  busi- 
ness sections  of  great  cities.  It  has  been  asserted  that  these 
conditions  originate  the  influences  which  breed  crises, 
and  the  case  of  Australia,  where  the  population  is  un- 
usually concentrated  in  cities,  has  been  cited  as  evidence. 
'A  large  city  is  characterized  by  an  intensity  of  internal 
imitation  in  proportion  to  the  density  of  population,  and 
a  multiform  multiplicity  of  the  relations  of  its  inhabit- 
ants. Thus  there  is  an  epidemic  and  contagious  char- 
acter given  not  only  to  its  diseases,  but  to  its  styles  and 
views.'  The  so-called  'booms'  of  American  towns  illus- 
trate in  acute  form  the  occasional  economic  effect  of 
these  influences.  The  power  of  mental  contagion  is 
increased  by  such  facilities  for  assemblage  and  com- 
munication as  the  railway,  telegraph,  and  telephone. 
It  is  obviously  enhanced  by  the  practice  of  transacting 
business  in  industrial  assemblages  such  as  stock  and 
produce  exchanges.  Attention  may  be  called  to  the 
fact  that  in  periods  of  unusual  business  success  or  de- 
pression, this  physical  concentration  of  traders  in  large 
markets  is  greatly  increased." 

But  the  propinquity  of  city  people  may  be  more  than  Crowd 
counteracted    by  their  mental  and    moral  heterogeneity.  P  ^"°™^"^ 

-'  "  •'       in  city  and 

Says  Professor  Giddings :  ^     "  The  increasing  density  of  in  country 

^  Forum,  35,  pp.  251-252. 


6o 


SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 


Obstacles  to 
impulsive 
cooperation 
among  city 
dwellers 


modern  populations  is  seemingly  favorable  to  popular 
tumult,  which  might  easily  become  insurrection  or  rev- 
olution. In  the  literature  of  political  science  there  is 
perhaps  no  more  familiar  assumption  than  the  one 
which  associates  all  the  dangers  of  the  mob  spirit  with 
the  democratic  organization  of  great  cities."  Yet  "a 
systematic  grouping  of  observations  from  many  parts 
of  the  world  would  demonstrate  that  the  phenomena 
of  lawless  popular  action,  as  in  insurrections,  lynchings, 
and  riotous  outbreaks  in  connection  with  labor  strikes, 
are,  on  the  whole,  phenomena  of  rural  rather  than  of 
urban  population.  There  have  been  scenes  of  wild 
violence  in  Paris  and  in  London ;  there  have  been  draft 
and  other  riots  in  New  York  City;  but  the  collective 
violence  in  all  the  great  cities  of  Europe  and  America 
for  two  hundred  years  would  not  make  a  great  showing 
by  comparison  with  the  epidemics  of  emotion  —  accom- 
panied by  dancing  and  other  manias  —  that  surged  through 
rural  communities  in  connection  with  the  great  revival 
movements  under  the  Wesleyans,  the  later  revivals  of 
1837  and  1857,  the  insurrections  like  Shays's  Rebellion 
and  the  Whiskey  Rebellion,  the  Ku  Klux  Klan  outrages, 
the  Vigilance  Committee  activities,  the  conflicts  between 
Gentiles  and  Mormons,  the  White  Cap  outrages,  and  the 
lynchings  in  our  Western  and  Southern  states. 

*'  The  reason  for  this  curious  fact  is  undoubtedly  to  be 
found  in  the  restraining  effect  of  ethnic  and  mental  dif- 
ference. The  rural  community  is  relatively  homogeneous. 
The  'neighbors'  for  miles  in  every  direction  are  nearly 
all  of  one  blood.  They  are  practically  of  one  economic 
condition.  For  the  most  part  they  are  of  one  religious 
confession  or  of  two  or  three  confessions  not  very  unlike 


THE  CROWD  6i 

in  creeds  and  practices.  All  are  acquainted  with  one 
another.  An  exciting  event  or  suggestion  that  moves 
one  will,  almost  certainly,  move  the  others.  Emotion 
among  them  is  highly  contagious.  They  respond  to  like 
stimuli  because  they  are  alike.  The  city  population  is 
composite  and  differentiated.  In  a  mixed  crowd  of 
hundreds  that  gathers  on  the  street  no  one  man  of  them 
all  recognizes  a  dozen  others.  They  are  of  all  sorts  and 
conditions,  the  well-to-do  and  the  poor,  and  often  of  many 
nationalities.  Danger  arises  only  when  discontent  and 
inflammatory  suggestion  find  homogeneous  material  to 
work  upon  in  a  quarter  whose  denizens  are  of  one  na- 
tionality and  of  the  same  economic  condition,  and  among 
whom  may  be  found,  here  and  there,  small  gangs  of 
toughs  who  are  already  disciplined  in  associating  for 
lawless  purposes.  Only  an  extraordinary  influence  can 
combine  the  impulsive  tendencies  among  unlike  classes, 
differing  nationalities,  unacquainted  neighborhoods,  in 
one  great  outbreak.  Such  things  have  happened,  and 
doubtless  will  happen  again;  but  the  normal  influence 
of  heterogeneity  and  differentiation  in  a  population  is 
unfavorable  to  collective  action." 

SUMMARY 

In  the  dense  throng  individuality  wilts  and  droops. 

A  common  orientation  of  attention  and  a  state  of  excitement 
predispose  to  the  mob  mood. 

The  heightened  suggestibility  of  people  under  such  conditions 
exaggerates  the  influence  of  the  fanatical  and  impassioned. 

Crowd  conditions  facilitate  the  circulation  of  feelings,  hinder  the 
circulation  of  ideas. 

Under  these  conditions  the  dominant  emotional  note  reaches  an 
extreme  pitch. 


62  SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

In  the  crowd  rational  or  accurate  thinking  is  arrested. 

Every  impulse  that  traverses  the  crowd  smooths  the  way  for  its 
successor.  The  merging  of  many  individual  selves  into  a  single 
crowd  self  therefore  takes  time. 

The  crowd  self  is  unstable,  credulous,  irrational,  and  immoral. 

The  Rules  of  Order  save  the  deliberative  assembly  from  degen- 
erating into  a  crowd. 

EXERCISE 

Show  that  each  of  these  arts  of  the  popular  orator  finds  its 
warrant  in  some  psychological  characteristic  of  the  crowd.  If 
possible  read  Le  Bon's  "The  Crowd,"  Bk.  I,  ch.  Ill;  Bk.  II,  ch. 
II,  sec.  I,  ch.  III. 

1.  At  the  outset  seem  to  agree  with  it. 

2.  Vigorously  affirm  and  reiterate  with  fire  and  passion. 

3.  Make  each  imagine  you  address  him.  By  eye,  voice,  attitude, 
and  action  rivet  attention  and  keep  the  spell  unbroken. 

4.  Cut  out  facts,  statistics,  valid  proof,  and  evidence. 

5.  Never  argue  or  follow  out  painstakingly  the  links  of  a  logical 
chain. 

6.  Use  demonstration,  ocular  evidence,  histrionism. 

7.  Use  figures  of  speech,  metaphors,  emblems  (flag,  group 
symbol,  totem),  and  shibboleths  ("  family,"  "  home,"  "  the  Church," 
"the  Fathers,"  "  Our  Country,"  "our  Cause,"  "  the  Right  "). 

8.  Address  passions  (including,  of  course,  cupidity),  but  not 
rational  interests. 


CHAPTER  IV 

MOB   MIND 

Presence  is  not  essential  to  mass  suggestion.  Mental  Mob  mind 
touch  is  no  longer  bound  up  with  physical  proximity.  ^^.'^^^^^ 
With  the  telegraph  to  collect  and  transmit  the  expressions 
and  signs  of  the  ruling  mood,  and  the  fast  mail  to  hurry 
to  the  eager  clutch  of  waiting  thousands  the  still  damp 
sheets  of  the  morning  daily,  remote  people  are  brought, 
as  it  were,  into  one  another's  presence.  Through  its 
organs  the  excited  public  is  able  to  assail  the  individual 
with  a  mass  of  suggestion  almost  as  vivid  as  if  he  actually 
stood  in  the  midst  of  an  immense  crowd. 

Formerly,  within  a  day,  a  shock  might  throw  into  a  The  public 
fever  all  within  a  hundred  miles.  The  next  day  it  might 
agitate  the  zone  beyond,  but  meanwhile  the  fu-st  body 
of  people  would  have  cooled  down  and  become  ready 
to  listen  to  reason.  And  so,  while  a  wave  of  excitement 
passed  slowly  over  the  country,  the  entire  folk  was  at  no 
moment  in  a  state  of  agitation.  Now,  however,  our 
space-annihilatin'g  devices  make  a  shock  well-nigh  si- 
multaneous. A  vast  public  shares  the  same  rage,  alarm, 
enthusiasm,  or  horror.  Then,  as  each  part  of  the  mass 
becomes  acquainted  with  the  sentiment  of  all  the  rest, 
the  feeling  is  generalized  and  intensified.  In  the  end 
the  public  swallows  up  the  individuality  of  the  ordinary 
man  in  much  the ,  same  way  the  crowd  swallows  up  the 
individuality  of  its  members. 

63 


64 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


Dififerences 
between 
crowd  and 
public 


The  psy- 
chology of 
the  public 
more  nor- 
mal 


Ours  is  the 
era  of  publics 


Nevertheless,  public  and  crowd  are  not  identical  in 
their  characteristics.  If  by  the  aid  of  a  telephonic  news 
service  —  as  in  Budapest  —  people  were  brought  into 
immediate  touch,  there  would  still  be  lacking  certain 
conditions  of  the  mob  state.  The  hurly-burly,  the  press 
and  heave  of  the  crowd  are  avoided  when  contact  is 
purely  mental.  As  we  have  seen,  in  the  throng  the  means 
of  expressing  feeling  are  much  more  effective  than  the 
facilities  for  expressing  thought.  But  in  a  dispersed  group 
feeling  enjoys  no  such  advantage.  Both  are  confined  to 
the  same  vehicle  —  the  printed  word  —  and  so  ideas  and 
opinions  run  as  rapidly  through  the  public  as  emotions. 

One  is  member  of  but  one  crowd  at  a  time,  but  by 
reading  a  number  of  newspapers,  one  can  belong  to  sev- 
eral publics  with,  perhaps,  different  planes  of  vibration. 
So  far  as  these  various  unanimities  cross  and  neutralize 
one  another,  the  suction  of  the  public  will  be  weakened. 
The  crowd  may  be  stampeded  into  folly  or  crime  by 
accidental  leaders.  The  public  can  receive  suggestions 
only  through  the  columns  of  its  journal,  the  editor  of 
which  is  like  the  chairman  of  a  mass-meeting,  for  no 
one  can  be  heard  without  his  recognition.  For  all  these 
reasons  the  psychology  of  the  public,  though  similar  to 
that  of  the  crowd,  is  more  normal. 

Ours  is  not  the  era  of  hereditary  rulers,  oligarchies, 
hierarchies,  or  close  corporations.  But  neither  is  it,  as 
some  insist,  "the  era  of  crowds."  It  is,  in  fact,  the  era 
of  publics.  Those  who  perceive  that  to-day  under  the 
influence  of  universal  discussion  the  old  fixed  groupings 
which  held  their  members  so  tenaciously  —  sects,  parties, 
castes,  and  the  like  — ■  are  liquefying,  that  allegiances  sit 
lightly,   and   that  men   are  endlessly  passing  into  new 


MOB   MIND  65 

combinations,  seek  to  stigmatize  these  loose  associations 
as  "crowds."  The  true  crowd  is,  however,  in  a  declin- 
ing role.  Universal  contact  by  means  of  print  ushers 
in  "the  rule  of  public  opinion,"  which  is  a  totally  different 
thing  from  "government  by  the  mob." 

The   principal  manifestations  of   mob   mind    in   vast  Craze  and 
bodies  of  dispersed  individuals  are  the  craze  and  the  fad.  sy^pt^j^g 
These  may  be  defined  as  that  irrational  unanimity  of  of  mob  mind 
interest,  feeling,  opinion,  or  deed  in  a  body  of  communicat- 
ing individuals,  which  results  from  suggestion  and  imita- 
tion.    In  the  chorus  of   execration  over   a    sensational 
crime,  in  the  clamor  for  the  blood  of  an  assassin,  in  waves 
of  national  feeling,  in  political  "  land-slides,"  in  passionate 
"  sympathetic "    strikes,   in   cholera   scares,    in    popular 
delusions,    in   religious  crazes,  in   migration   manias,  in 
"  booms "  and  panics,    in  agitations  and  insurrections, 
we  witness  contagion  on  a  gigantic  scale,  favored  in  some 
cases  by  popular  hysteria. 

As  there  must  be  in  the  typical  mob  a  centre  which  radi-  Theory  of 
ates  impulses  by  fascination  till  they  have  subdued  enough  '^^  ^^^^® 
people  to  continue  their  course  by  sheer  intimidation,  so 
for  the  craze  there  must  be  an  excitant,  overcoming  so 
many  people  that  these  can  affect  the  rest  by  mere  volume 
of  suggestion.  This  first  orientation  may  be  produced 
by  some  striking  event  or  incident.  The  murder  of  a 
leader,  an  insult  to  an  ambassador,  the  predictions  of 
a  crazy  fanatic,  the  words  of  a  "  Messiah,"  a  sensational 
proclamation,  the  arrest  of  an  agitator,  a  coup  d'etat,  the 
advent  of  a  new  railroad,  the  collapse  of  a  prominent 
bank,  a  number  of  deaths  by  an  epidemic,  a  series  of 
mysterious  murders,  an  inexplicable  occurrence,  such  as 
a  comet,  an  eclipse,  a  star  shower,  or  an  earthquake, — 


66  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

each  of  these  has  been  the  starting-point  of  some  fever, 
mania,  crusade,  uprising,  boom,  panic,  delusion,  or  fright. 
The  more  expectant  or  overwrought  the  pubhc  mind, 
the  easier  it  is  to  set  up  a  great  perturbation.  After 
a  series  of  public  calamities,  a  train  of  startling  events, 
a  pestilence,  an  earthquake,  or  a  war,  the  anchor  of 
reason  finds  no  holding  ground,  and  minds  are  blown 
about  by  every  gust  of  passion  or  sentiment. 
Socio-psy.  The  early  years  of  Christianity  were  marked  by  ex- 

nomfn^r  in      traordinary  signs  of  exalted  suggestibility.    Harnack  ^  cites 
the  early        the  following  phenomena  —  regarded  as  tokens  "of  the 
^  Spirit  and  of  Power"  —  in  the  primitive  Christian  church, 

"i.  God  speaks  to  the  missionaries  in  visions,  dreams, 
and  ecstasy,  revealing  to  them  affairs  of  moment  and 
also  trifles,  controlling  their  plans,  and  pointing  out 
the  roads  on  which  they  are  to  travel,  the  cities  where 
they  are  to  stay,  and  the  persons  whom  they  are  to  visit. 
Visions  emerge  especially  after  martyrdom,  the  dead  mar- 
tyr appearing  to  his  friends  during  the  weeks  that  imme- 
diately follow  his  death,  as  in  the  case  of  Potamiasna, 
or  of  Cyprian,  or  of  many  others. 

"2.  At  the  missionary  addresses  of  the  apostles  or  evan- 
gelists, or  at  the  services  of  the  churches  which  they  founded, 
sudden  movements  of  rapture  are  experienced,  many  of 
them  being  simultaneous  seizures;  these  are  either  full 
of  terror  and  dismay,  convulsing  the  whole  spiritual  life, 
or  exultant  outbursts  of  a  joy  that  sees  heaven  opened 
to  its  eyes.  The  simple  question,  '  What  must  I  do  to  be 
saved  ?'  also  bursts  upon  the  mind  with  an  elemental  force.^ 

*  "Expansion  of  Christianity,"  I,   251-252. 

'  How  like  all  this  to  certain  modern  experiences !  Says  Evans, 
speaking  of  the  conclusive  manifestations  among  the  Shakers:  "Some- 
times, after  sitting  awhile  in  silent  meditation,  they  were  seized  with  a 


MOB   MIND  67 

"3.  Some  are  inspired,  who  have  power  to  clothe  their 
experience  in  words  —  prophets  to  explain  the  past,  to 
interpret  and  to  fathom  the  present,  and  to  foretell  the 
future.  Their  prophecies  relate  to  the  general  course 
of  history,  but  also  to  the  fortunes  of  individuals,  to  what 
individuals  are  to  do  or  leave  undone. 

"  4.  Brethren  are  inspired  with  the  impulse  to  improvise 
prayers  and  hymns  and  psalms. 

"  5.  Others  are  so  filled  with  the  Spirit  that  they  lose 
consciousness  and  break  out  in  stammering  speech  and 
cries,  in  unintelligible  utterances  which  can  be  interpreted, 
however,  by  those  who  have  the  gift. 

"  6.  Into  the  hands  of  others,  again,  the  Spirit  slips  a 
pen,  either  in  an  ecstasy  or  in  exalted  moments  of  spiritual 
tension;  they  not  merely  speak,  but  write  as  they  are 
bidden. 

"7.  Sick  persons  are  brought  to  be  healed  by  the  mis- 
sionaries, or  by  brethren  who  have  been  but  recently 
awakened;  wild  paroxysms  of  terror  in  God's  presence 
are  also  soothed,  and  in  the  name  of  Jesus  demons  are 
cast  out. 

"  8.  The  Spirit  impels  men  to  an  immense  variety  of 
extraordinary  actions  —  to  symbolic  actions  which  are 
meant  to  reveal  some  mystery  or  to  give  some  directions 
for  life,  as  well  as  to  deeds  of  heroism. 

mighty  trembling,  under  which  they  would  often  express  the  indignation 
of  God  against  all  sin,  at  other  times,  they  were  exercised  with  singing, 
shouting,  and  leaping  for  joy,  at  the  near  prospect  of  salvation.  They 
were  often  exercised  with  great  agitation  of  body  and  limbs,  shaking, 
running,  and  walking  the  floor,  with  a  variety  of  other  operations  and 
signs,  swiftly  passing  and  repassing  each  other,  like  clouds  agitated  with 
a  mighty  wind.  These  exercises,  so  strange  in  the  eyes  of  the  beholders, 
brought  upon  them  the  appellation  of  Shakers."  —  "  Shakers,"  21. 


68  SOCLAJL   PSYCHOLOGY 

"  9.  Some  perceive  the  presence  of  the  Spirit  with  every 
sense ;  they  see  its  brilliant  light,  they  hear  its  voice,  they 
smell  the  fragrance  of  immortality  and  taste  its  svi^eetness. 
Nay,  more ;  they  see  celestial  persons  with  their  own  eyes, 
see  them  and  also  hear  them ;  they  peer  into  what  is  hidden 
or  distant  or  to  come ;  they  are  even  rapt  into  the  world 
to  come,  into  heaven  itself,  where  they  listen  to  'words 
that  cannot  be  uttered.' 

"  ID.  But  although  the  Spirit  manifests  itself  through 
marvels  like  these,  it  is  no  less  effective  in  heightening 
the  religious  and  the  moral  powers,  which  operate  with 
such  purity  and  power  in  certain  individuals  that  they 
bear  palpably  the  stamp  of  their  divine  origin." 
Institution-  Evidently  there  are  two  main  sources  of  these  extraor- 
ahzing  kills     binary  mental  phenomena  —  the  subconscious   and    the 

"the  Spirit  •'  ^ 

social  environment.  It  is  only  the  latter  that  involves 
social  psychology.  Harnack  significantly  adds:^  "It 
was  in  the  primitive  days  of  Christianity  during  the  first 
sixty  years  of  its  course  that  their  effects  were  most  con- 
spicuous, but  they  continued  to  exist  all  through  the 
second  century,  although  in  diminished  volume.  .  .  . 
The  Montanist  movement  certainly  gave  new  life  to  '  the 
Spirit '  which  had  begun  to  wane ;  but  after  the  open- 
ing of  the  third  century  the  phenomena  dwindled  rapidly 
and  instead  of  being  the  hall-mark  of  the  church  at  large, 
or  of  every  individual  community,  they  became  merely  the 
equipment  of  a  few  favored  individuals."  ^ 

'  "  Expansion  of  Christianity,"  I,  254-256. 

^  Precisely  this  taming  and  institutionalizing  of  an  elemental  impulse 
is  seen  in  the  history  of  the  Society  of  Friends.  They  obtained  the 
name  of  Quakers  from  the  violent  tremblings  which  overcame  the  wor- 
shippers in  the  early  days,  and  which  they  regarded  as  manifestations 
of  divine  power  in  them.     It  is  hard  to  see  in  the  sedate  and  quiet  Friend 


MOB   MIND  69 

The  abnormal  suggestibility  of  mediaeval  society  re-  The  Chii- 
vealed  itself  in  the  Crusades/  especially  the  crusades  of  J^"  ^  ^^' 
children.  About  1212  Stephen,  a  shepherd  boy,  preached 
among  the  pilgrims  at  St.  Denys  a  crusade  of  children 
to  recover  the  Holy  Sepulchre.  Presently  everywhere 
there  arose  children  of  ten  years,  and  some  even  so  young 
as  eight,  who  claimed  to  be  prophets  also.  They  went 
about  collecting  followers  and  marching  in  solemn  pro- 
cession through  towns  and  villages.  Some  noble  youths 
joined  these  processions,  and  many  girls.  The  efforts  of 
parents  to  hold  back  their  children  were  futile.  "Bolts 
and  bars  would  not  hold  the  children.  If  shut  up,  they 
broke  through  doors  and  windows,  and  rushed,  deaf  to 
appeals  of  mothers  and  fathers,  to  take  their  places  in 
the  processions,  which  they  saw  passing  by,  whose  crosses 
and  banners,  whose  censers,  songs,  and  shouts,  and 
paraphernalia  seemed,  like  the  winds  of  torrid  climates, 
to  bear  resistless  infection.  If  the  children  were  forcibly 
held  and  confined,  so  that  escape  was  impossible,  they 
wept  and  mourned,  and  at  last  pined,  as  if  the  receding 
sounds  carried  away  their  hearts  and  their  strength. 
It  was  necessary  to  release  them,  and,  forgetting  to  say 
farewell,  .  .  .  they  ran  to  enlist  in  those  deluded  throngs 
that  knew  not  whither  they  went."  ^ 

In  the  neighborhood  of  Cologne,  Nicholas,  a  boy  of  ten, 
gathered  together  not  less  than  twenty  thousand  children. 
"Parents,  friends,  and  pastors  sought  to  restrain  them  by 
force  or  appeal,  but  they  whose  hearts  were  set  upon  the 

of  to-day  the  spiritual  descendant  of  exaltes  whose  convulsions  are  said 
to  have  been  so  violent  as  to  shake  the  house  of  meeting ! 

*  See  Von  Sybel,  "Geschichte  des  ersten  Kreuzzuges,"  185-203. 

2  Gray,  "The  Children's  Crusade,"  52. 


70 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


Mental 
epidemics  in 
America 


Millerism 


enterprise  mourned  and  pined  so  that  we  are  told  their 
lives  were  frequently  endangered  as  by  disease,  and  it 
was  necessary  to  allow  them  to  depart."  ^  Ultimately 
nearly  one  hundred  thousand  children  were  drawn  into 
the  maelstrom,  of  whom  at  least  a  third  never  saw  their 
homes  again. 

The  child  pilgrimages,  the  flagellant  epidemic,  the 
dancing  mania,  tarantism,  the  witchcraft  delusion,  and 
the  anti- Jewish  outbreaks  down  to  the  Russian  pogroms 
of  to-day  all  show  the  spirit  of  the  hive.  Of  religious  and 
moral  epidemics  America  has  had  its  full  share.  The 
Great  Awakening  in  colonial  days,  the  great  revivals  of 
1800,  1830,  and  1858,  however  fruitful  in  their  results, 
were  certainly  extended  by  social  suggestion.  How  else 
can  we  explain  the  wild-fire  sweep  of  the  movement  after 
it  had  slowly  won  a  certain  headway  and  momentum  ? 

In  1840  William  Miller  went  about  predicting  the  com- 
ing of  the  Lord  and  the  end  of  all  things  somewhere 
between  the  equinoxes  of  1 843-1 844.  By  upwards  of 
three  thousand  addresses  he  was  able  to  win  about  fifty 
thousand  followers,  and  these  by  interstimulation  wrought 
one  another  up  to  a  high  pitch  of  fanaticism.  As  the 
great  day  approached,  they  forsook  their  callings,  gave 
away  their  goods,  prepared  their  ascension  robes,  and  re- 
paired to  the  fields.  When  the  appointed  time  rolled  by, 
instead  of  losing  confidence  in  their  leader,  as  an  indi- 
vidual would  have  done,  the  Millerites,  as  if  to  illustrate 
the  abeyance  of  reason  in  all  collectivities,  clung  to  their 
delusion  and  accepted  the  new  date  of  October  22,  1844. 
During  the  interval  converts  multiplied,  and  the  fanaticism 
was,  if  anything,  more  intense  than  before.     When  proph- 

1  Gray,  "  The  Children's  Crusade,"  66. 


MOB   MIND  71 

ecy  a  second  time  failed,  the  growth  of  the  sect  was  checked, 
although  it  survives  to  the  present  day. 

The  Women's  Crusade  ^  began  in  Hillsborough,  Ohio,  The  Wom- 
on  Christmas  morning,  1873.  After  a  lecture  by  Dr.  l^^^^'""' 
Dio  Lewis  on  the  Potency  of  Woman's  Prayer  in  the  Grog- 
shop, a  meeting  for  prayer  and  organization  was  held, 
and  thereupon  the  ladies,  led  by  the  wife  of  a  distin- 
guished general,  sallied  forth  to  the  drug  stores,  hotels, 
and  saloons.  "The  movement  spread  into  adjacent 
towns,  the  women  visiting  saloons,  singing,  praying,  and 
pleading  with  those  engaged  in  the  traffic  to  desist.  In 
many  places  the  ladies  suffered  severe  privations,  were 
oftentimes  kept  standing  in  the  cold  and  rain,  and  were 
sometimes  the  subjects  of  severe  remarks  and  direct  per- 
secution. The  churches  were  crowded  day  and  night, 
and  touching  incidents  of  recovery  from  ruin  interested 
immense  audiences."  In  spite  of  seeming  success,  the 
crusade  soon  died  out  and  has  never  been  repeated.  Too 
much  at  variance  with  feminine  nature  to  last,  its  sudden 
wide  vogue  can  be  explained  only  by  mental  contagion. 

In  1901  Mrs.  Nation  of  Wichita,  Kansas,  went  about  Mrs.  Na- 
Kansas  towns  destroying  saloon  furnishings  with  an  axe.  ^'^^^^  "'^' 
At  once  there  was  great  agitation,  and  tens  of  thousands 
of  women  held  prayer-meetings  and  meditated  following 
her  example.  A  number  of  imitators  sprang  up,  but 
law  and  public  opinion  quickly  intervened  to  check  the 
spread  of  the  movement. 

In  modern  times  financial  crazes  are  a  close  second  to  Financial 
religious  crazes.     The  tulip  mania  is  perhaps  the  strangest.  tuHp^^mania^ 
"About  the  year  1634  the  Dutch  became  suddenly  pos- 
sessed with  a  mania  for  tulips.     The  ordinary  industry 

'See  "Cyclopaedia  of  Methodism." 


72  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

of  the  country  was  neglected,  and  the  population,  even 
to  its  lowest  dregs,  embarked  in  the  tulip  trade.  The 
tulip  rose  rapidly  in  value,  and  when  the  mania  was  in 
full  swing  some  daring  speculators  invested  as  much  as 
one  hundred  thousand  florins  in  the  purchase  of  forty 
roots.  The  bulbs  were  as  precious  as  diamonds;  they 
were  sold  by  their  weight  in  perils,  a  weight  less  than  a 
grain."  "  Regular  marts  for  the  sale  of  roots  were  estab- 
lished in  all  the  large  towns  of  Holland  —  in  Amsterdam, 
Rotterdam,  Haarlem,  Leyden,  Alkmaar.  The  stock  job- 
bers dealt  largely  in  tulips,  and  their  profits  were  enormous. 
Many  speculators  grew  suddenly  rich.  The  epidemic  of 
tulipomania  raged  with  intense  fury,  the  enthusiasm  of 
speculation  filled  every  heart,  and  confidence  was  at  its 
height.  A  golden  bait  hung  temptingly  out  before  the 
people,  and  one  after  the  other  they  rushed  to  the  tulip 
marts  like  flies  around  a  honey-pot.  Every  one  imagined 
that  the  passion  for  tulips  would  last  forever,  and  that  the 
wealthy  from  every  part  of  the  world  would  send  to  Hol- 
land and  pay  whatever  prices  were  asked  for  them.  The 
riches  of  Europe  would  be  concentrated  on  the  shores  of 
the  Zuyder  Zee.  Nobles,  citizens,  farmers,  mechanics, 
seamen,  footmen,  maid-servants,  chimney-sweeps,  and 
old-clothes  women  dabbled  in  tulips.  Houses  and  lands 
were  offered  for  sale  at  ruinously  low  prices,  or  assigned 
in  payment  of  bargains  made  at  the  tulip  market.  So 
contagious  was  the  epidemic  that  foreigners  became  smit- 
ten with  the  same  frenzy,  and  money  poured  into  Holland 
from  all  directions. 

"This  speculative  mania  did  not  last  long;  social  sug- 
gestion began  to  work  in  the  opposite  direction,  and  a  uni- 
versal panic  suddenly  seized  on  the  minds  of  the  Dutch. 


MOB   MIND  73 

Instead  of  buying,  every  one  was  trying  to  sell.  Tulips  fell 
below  their  normal  value.  Thousands  of  merchants  were 
utterly  ruined,  and  a  cry  of  lamentation  rose  in  the  land."  ^ 

In  the  same  class  may  be  placed  the  Mississippi  Bubble,  stampedes 
the  South  Sea  Bubble,  and  the  railway  manias,  real  estate 
booms,  and  financial  panics  so  frequent  in  the  last  century. 
Often  movements  to  fields  of  opportunity  show  something 
of  the  stampede.  The  "Ho  for  Texas!"  movement,  the 
California  gold  fever,  the  negro  exodus  of  1879,  the 
Klondike  Rush,  and  the  frequent  mass  migrations  at  the 
rumor  of  a  rich  "strike"  in  the  mining  country,  rational 
as  they  are  at  bottom,  owe  something  to  the  contagion  of 
example.  When,  in  the  spring,  the  first  boat  down  the  Yu- 
kon brings  news  of  so  many  millions  of  gold  dust  washed 
out,  a  certain  number  resolve  for  the  Klondike.  When, 
now,  the  sceptic  learns  in  quick  succession  that  his  partner, 
his  brother,  his  grocer,  his  dentist,  and  his  neighbor  are 
off  to  seek  their  fortunes,  he  becomes  restless.  The 
"fever"  is  in  his  blood.  Something  is  pulling  him,  and 
the  pull  becomes  stronger  with  every  new  recruit  he  hears 
of.  When  at  length  he  joins  the  army  of  gold  seekers, 
his  example  helps  break  down  the  resistance  of  some  one 
else ;  and  so  there  is  a  rush. 

The  "Great  Fear"  in  France  in  1789  illustrates  the  The  "Great 
craze.  Says  Stephens:  ^  "The  months  of  July  and  Au-  ^^^''" 
gust  may  be  called  the  months  of  the  'great  fear.'  Men 
were  afraid,  both  in  town  and  country,  of  they  knew  not 
what.  How  this  universal  feeling  of  terror  arose  cannot 
be  proved,  but  it  was  actually  deemed  necessary  in  some 
districts  for  a  distinct  denial  to  be  published  to  the  report 

iSidis,  "The  Psychology  of  Suggestion,"  343-345- 
2  "  History  of  the  French  Revolution,"  I,  178-179. 


74  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

that  the  king  had  paid  brigands  to  rob  the  people."  "  This 
'great  fear'  was  generally  expressed  in  the  words  'The 
brigands  are  coming.'  Who  the  brigands  were,  whence 
they  came,  or  whither  they  were  going,  nobody  knew ;  but 
that  the  brigands  were  coming,  nobody  doubted."  "  It  was 
in  the  towns  that  this  strange  terror  was  most  keenly  felt. 
In  the  town  of  Gueret,  July  29,  1789,  was  known  for  years 
after  as  the  day  of  the  '  great  fear.'  Suddenly,  at  about  five 
in  the  afternoon  of  that  day,  a  rumor  arose  that  the  brig- 
ands were  coming.  The  women  rushed  out  of  the  town 
and  hid  themselves  in  the  thickets  and  ditches ;  while  the 
men  assembled  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  and  hastily  formed 
themselves  into  an  armed  force  to  assist  the  town  militia. 
Several  notables  of  the  town  took  their  seats  with  the 
municipal  officers  and  formed  a  committee,  which  sent 
despatches  to  all  the  neighboring  towns  and  villages  for 
aid.  .  .  .  These  allies,  to  the  number  of  8000  to  10,000, 
flocked  into  the  town,  and  were  regaled  at  its  expense ; 
and  when  it  was  found  that  the  brigands  did  not  come, 
they  all  went  home  again.  At  Chateau-Thierry  news 
arrived,  on  July  28,  that  2500  'carabots,'  or  brigands, 
were  marching  along  the  Soissons  road ;  the  tocsin  rang, 
and  the  bourgeois  marched  out  to  meet  them.  On  their 
way  a  miller  told  them  that  the  brigands  had  just  sacked 
Bouresches,  which  was  in  flames ;  but  when  the  partisans 
of  order  arrived  there,  the  flames  were  found  to  be  only  the 
reflection  of  the  sun  upon  the  roofs  of  the  houses.  Then 
the  brigands  were  descried  in  the  act  of  crossing  the  Marne 
at  Essommes ;  but  when  the  tired  pursuers  came  up,  they 
found  that  these  new  brigands  were  the  women  of  Es- 
sommes, who  had  been  scared  at  their  appearance  and 
who  believed  them  to  be  the  real  brigands." 


MOB   MIND  75 

In  the  present  agitated,  overwrought  state  of  the  Rus- 
sian people  there  are  occurring,  no  doubt,  among  the 
ignorant,  superstitious  masses  mob-mind  phenomena 
that  will  stupefy  us  with  amazement  once  the  veil  is  with- 
drawn and  the  facts  become  known. 

The  tendency  of  the  plane  to  extend  and  complete  itself  The  war 
as  the  emotional  temperature  rises  is  seen  in  the  sweep-  ^p'"*^  °^'^^ 
ing  of  the  war  spirit  over  North  and  South  after  the  firing 
on  Fort  Sumter.  In  the  two  sections  psychic  vortexes  had 
gradually  formed,  rotating  in  opposite  directions.  With 
the  sudden  access  of  emotion  after  the  shock  of  the  first 
clash  of  arms,  these  vortexes  rotated  at  a  much  higher 
speed  and  sucked  into  themselves  many  who  hitherto  had 
been  indifferent  or  hostile.  All  but  a  vanishing  remnant 
were  affected  with  the  emotion  of  their  section.  Say 
Nicolay  and  Hay :  ^  "The  guns  of  the  Sumter  bombard- 
ment woke  the  country  from  the  political  nightmare 
which  had  so  long  tormented  and  paralyzed  it.  The  lion 
of  the  North  was  fully  roused.  Betrayed,  insulted,  out- 
raged, the  free  States  arose  as  with  a  cry  of  pain  and  ven- 
geance. War  sermons  from  pulpits;  war  speeches  in 
every  assemblage;  tenders  of  troops;  offers  of  money; 
military  proclamations  and  orders  in  every  newspaper; 
every  city  radiant  with  bunting;  every  village  green  a 
mustering  ground ;  war  appropriations  in  every  legislature 
and  in  every  city  or  town  council;  war  preparations  in 
every  public  or  private  workshop;  gun  casting  in  the 
great  foundries ;  cartridge  making  in  the  principal  towns ; 
camps  and  drills  in  the  fields ;  parades,  drums,  flags,  and 
bayonets  in  the  streets ;  knitting,  bandage  rolling,  and  lint 
scraping  in  nearly  every  household.     Before  the  lapse  of 

1  "  Abraham  Lincoln,  A  History,"  IV,  85-87. 


76  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

forty-eight  hours  a  Massachusetts  regiment,  armed  and 
equipped,  was  on  its  way  to  Washington ;  within  the  space 
of  a  month  the  energy  and  intelligence  of  the  country  were 
almost  completely  turned  from  the  industries  of  peace  to 
the  activities  of  war.  The  very  children  abandoned  their 
old-time  school  games,  and  played  only  at  soldiering." 
"  *  Ten  days  ago  we  had  two  parties  in  this  State ;  to-day  we 
have  but  one,  and  that  one  is  for  the  Constitution  and  the 
Union  unconditionally,'  said  Iowa.  The  war  spirit  rose 
above  all  anticipation,  and  the  offer  of  volunteers  went 
far  beyond  the  call." 

"In  the  Gulf  States  the  revolutionary  excitement  rose 
to  a  similar  height,  but  with  contrary  sentiment.  All 
Union  feeling  and  utterance  vanished ;  and,  overawed  by 
a  terrorism  which  now  found  its  culmination,  no  one 
dared  breathe  a  thought  or  scarcely  entertain  a  hope  for 
the  old  flag." 
The  laws  of       The  laws  of  crazes  may  be  formulated  as  follows :  — 

1.  The  Craze  takes  Time  to  develop  to  its  Height.  — 
The  panic  of  1893  began  in  April  and  reached  its  height 
in  August,  but  socio-psychic  phenomena  began  to  manifest 
themselves  only  in  1894  in  the  form  of  the  great  sympa- 
thetic railway  strike,  labor  riots,  and  the  departure  for 
the  national  capital  of  ten  bodies  of  penniless  unemployed 
"  commonwealers "  to  petition  Congress  for  work.  The 
susceptibility  of  the  public  continued  through  1896,  and 
was  responsible  for  the  strong  emotional  currents  in  the 
presidential  campaign  of  that  year. 

2.  The  More  Extensive  its  Ravages,  the  Stronger  the 
Type  of  Intellect  that  falls  a  Prey  to  It.  —  In  the  acute 
stages  of  a  boom  or  a  revival,  even  the  educated,  experi- 
enced,  and   hard-headed   succumb.     Perhaps  no   better 


crazes 


MOB   MIND  77 

instance  can  be  cited  than  the  progress  of  a  Messianic  craze 
among  the  Jews.  In  1666  a  Jew  named  Sabbathai  Zevi 
declared  himself  publicly  as  the  long-expected  Messiah. 
A  maniacal  ecstasy  took  possession  of  the  Jewish  mind. 
Men,  women,  and  children  fell  into  fits  of  hysterics.  Busi- 
ness men  left  their  occupations,  workmen  their  trades, 
and  devoted  themselves  to  prayer  and  penitence.  The 
synagogues  resounded  with  sighs,  cries,  and  sobs  for  days 
and  nights  together.  All  the  rabbis  who  opposed  the 
mania  had  to  flee  for  their  lives.  The  fame  of  Sabbathai 
spread  throughout  the  world.  In  Poland,  in  Germany, 
in  Holland,  and  in  England,  the  course  of  business  was 
interrupted  on  the  Exchange  by  the  gravest  Jews  breaking 
off  to  discuss  this  wonderful  event.  In  Amsterdam  the 
Jews  marched  through  the  streets,  carrying  with  them  rolls 
of  the  Torah,  singing,  leaping,  and  dancing,  as  if  pos- 
sessed. Scenes  still  more  turbulent  and  wild  occurred  in 
Hamburg,  Venice,  Leghorn,  Avignon,  and  many  other 
cities.  Learned  men  began  to  give  in  their  adhesion. 
Everywhere  prophets  and  prophetesses  appeared,  thus 
realizing  the  Jewish  belief  in  the  inspired  nature  of  Mes- 
sianic times.  Men  and  women,  boys  and  girls,  in  hysteri- 
cal convulsions  screamed  praises  to  the  new  Messiah.  At 
last,  from  all  sides  rich  men  came  to  Sabbathai,  putting 
their  wealth  at  his  disposal.  Many  sold  all  they  pos- 
sessed and  set  out  for  Palestine.  Traffic  in  the  greatest 
commercial  centres  came  to  a  complete  standstill;  most 
of  the  Jewish  merchants  and  bankers  liquidated  their 
affairs.  The  belief  in  the  divine  mission  of  Sabbathai 
was  made  into  a  religious  dogma  of  equal  rank  with  that 
of  the  unity  of  God.^ 

'Sidis,  "The  Psychology  of  Suggestion,"  327-329. 


78  SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

3.  The  Greater  its  Height,  the  More  Absurd  the  Propo- 
sitions that  will  he  believed  or  the  Actions  that  will  be  done. 
—  At  the  zenith  of  the  South  Sea  craze  companies  formed 
"to  make  deal  boards  out  of  sawdust,"  "for  extracting 
silver  from  lead,"  "for  a  wheel  of  perpetual  motion,"  "for 
furnishing  funerals  to  any  part  of  Great  Britain,"  could 
sell  stock.  Finally  one  bold  speculator  started  "a  com- 
pany for  carrying  on  an  undertaking  of  great  advantage, 
but  nobody  to  know  what  it  is  !" 

4.  The  Higher  the  Craze,  the  Sharper  the  Reaction  from 
It.  — The  prostration  of  a  "busted  boom"  town  is  so  ex- 
treme that  its  unboomed  rivals  forge  ahead  of  it.  The 
reaction  from  a  purely  emotional  religious  revival  often 
leaves  the  cause  of  real  religion  worse  off  than  it  was  at 
first.  This  perhaps  is  why  experienced  churches  like  the 
Roman  Catholic  have  no  use  for  revivals. 

5.  One  Craze  is  frequently  succeeded  by  Another  exciting 
Emotions  of  a  Different  Character.  —  Says  Jones :^  "It 
is  interesting  to  note  that  the  emotions  which  have  been 
generated  by  speculative  excitement  and  intensified  by 
panic  depressions  have  been  frequently  transferred  to 
religious  subjects  and  have,  in  the  United  States  at  certain 
times,  given  rise  to  remarkable  revivals  of  religion  follow- 
ing close  upon  the  heels  of  panics."  "  A  contemporary  ac- 
count of  the  extraordinary  revival  movement  of  1857  says: 
'It  was  in  October  of  this  year  (1857)  that  Mr.  Lamphier, 
a  missionary  of  the  Dutch  Reformed  Church,  thought,  in 
his  own  heart,  that  an  hour  of  daily  prayer  would  bring 
consolation  to  afflicted  business  men.'  In  a  few  weeks 
those  holding  the  meetings  were  astonished  to  find  the 
crowds  growing  too  large  for  the  buildings.     The  Method- 

*  "Economic  Crises,"  209,  210. 


MOB   MIND  79 

ist  Church  on  John  Street  and  the  Dutch  Reformed 
Church  on  Fulton  Street  were  opened  daily.  Next, 
Burton's  Theatre  was  hired,  and  throughout  the  winter 
noonday  prayer-meetings  were  held  at  numerous  places 
in  the  city."  "  Even  the  firemen  and  policemen  held  their 
prayer-meetings,  so  that  we  may  feel  perfectly  assured 
of  the  truth  of  what  the  writer  says  when  he  adds,  '  It  is 
doubtful  whether  under  heaven  was  seen  such  a  sight  as 
went  on  in  the  city  of  New  York  in  the  winter  and  spring 
of  the  year  1857-1858.'  '  From  New  York  as  a  centre,  the 
mysterious  influence  spread  abroad  till  it  penetrated  all 
New  England  in  the  East,  southward  as  far  as  Virginia, 
and  even  beyond,  westward  to  Buffalo,  Cincinnati, 
Chicago,  St.  Louis,'" 

6.  A  Dynamic  Society  is  more  Craze-ridden  than  One 
moving  along  the  Ruts  of  Custom.  —  In  a  dynamic  society 
so  many  readjustments  are  necessary,  such  far-reaching 
transformations  are  experienced  in  half  a  lifetime,  that 
the  past  is  discredited.  One  forms  a  habit  of  breaking 
habits.  Ancestral  wisdom,  the  teachings  of  social  experi- 
ence are  refuted  and  discarded  at  so  many  points  that 
they  lose  their  steadying  power.  The  result  is  that  in- 
stead of  aping  their  forefathers,  people  ape  the  multitude. 

It  is  a  delusion  to  suppose  that  one  who  has  broken 
the  yoke  of  custom  is  emancipated.  The  lanes  of  custom 
are  narrow,  the  hedge-rows  are  high,  and  view  to  right 
or  left  there  is  none.  But  there  is  as  much  freedom  and 
self-direction  in  him  who  trudges  along  this  lane  as  in  the 
"emancipated"  person,  who  finds  himself  in  the  open 
country  free  to  pick  a  course  of  his  own,  but  who,  never- 
theless, stampedes  aimlessly  with  the  herd.  A  dynamic 
society  may,  therefore,  foster  individuality  no  more  than 


8o  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

a  static  society.  But  it  does  progress,  and  that,  perhaps, 
ought  to  reconcile  us  to  the  mental  epidemics  that  afflict 
us. 

7.  Ethnic  or  Mental  Homogeneity  is  Favorable  to  the 
Craze.  —  The  remarks  of  Giddings  regarding  like-minded- 
ness  and  the  crowd  apply  equally  well  here.  Caste  lines 
break  the  sweep  of  the  craze.  The  English  are  proof 
against  mob  mind  chiefly  because  they  stand  on  such 
different  levels.  Americans  are  on  a  prairie.  The  Eng- 
lish are  on  terraces.  The  gentleman,  the  shopkeeper,  or 
the  clerk  looks  with  disdain  upon  an  agitation  spreading 
among  workingmen,  and  instead  of  feeling  drawn  by  the 
rush  of  numbers,  is,  in  fact,  repelled.  Caste  makes  a 
society  immune  to  craze,  even  if  the  remedy  is  worse  than 
the  disease. 
Theory  of  The  fad  Originates  in  the  surprise  or  interest  excited  by 

novelty.  Roller  skating,  blue  glass,  the  planchette,  a  forty 
days'  fast,  tiddledy-winks,  faith  healing,  the  "13-14-15" 
puzzle,  baseball,  telepathy,  or  the  sexual  novel  attract 
those  restless  folk  who  are  always  running  hither  and 
thither  after  some  new  thing.  This  creates  a  swirl  which 
rapidly  sucks  into  its  vortex  the  soft-headed  and  weak- 
minded,  and  at  last,  grown  bigger,  involves  even  the 
saner  kind.  As  no  department  of  life  is  safe  from  the 
invasion  of  novelty,  we  have  all  kinds  of  fads :  philosophic 
fads,  like  pessimism  or  anarchism;  literary  fads,  like  the 
Impressionists  or  the  Decadents;  religious  fads,  hke 
spiritualism  or  theosophy;  hygienic  fads,  like  water-cure 
or  breakfast  foods;  medical  fads,  like  lymph  or  tuber- 
culin; personal  fads,  like  pet  lizards  or  face  enamel. 
And  of  these  orders  of  fads  each  has  a  clie?itele  of  its  own. 
In  many  cases  we  can  explain  vogue  entirely  in  terms 


the  fad 


MOB   MIND  8l 

of  novelty  fascination,  and  mass  suggestion.  But,  even  Faddismor 
when  the  new  thing  can  make  its  way  by  sheer  merit,  it  ^^°^^^^^ 
does  not  escape  becoming  a  fad.  It  still  will  have  its 
penumbral  ring  of  rapt  imitators.  So  there  is  something 
of  the  fad  even  in  bicycling,  motoring,  massage,  anti- 
sepsis, and  physical  culture.  Indeed,  it  is  sometimes  hard 
to  distinguish  faddism  from  the  enthusiastic  welcome  and 
prompt  acceptance  accorded  to  a  real  improvement.  For 
the  undiscerning  the  only  touchstone  is  time.  Here,  as 
elsewhere,  "  persistence  in  consciousness"  is  the  test  of 
reality.  The  mere  novelty,  soon  ceasing  to  be  novel,  bores 
people,  and  must  yield  to  a  fresh  sensation;  a  genuine 
improvement,  on  the  other  hand,  meets  a  real  need  and 
therefore  lasts. 

Unlike  the  craze,  the  fad  does  not  spread  in  a  medium  Why  fads 
especially  prepared  for  it  by  excitement.  It  cannot  rely  nowadays 
on  the  heightened  suggestibility  of  people.  Its  conquests, 
therefore,  imply  something  above  mere  volume  of  sugges- 
tion. They  imply  prestige.  The  fad  owes  half  its  power 
over  minds  to  the  prestige  that  in  this  age  attaches  to  the 
new. 

SUMMARY 

With  the  new  facilities  for  intercommunication  the  pressure  of 
suggestion  upon  the  mind  of  the  individual  may  be  greatly 
intensified. 

From  the  interaction  of  innumerable  minds  results  a  quasi-unit 
known  as  "the  public."  The  psychic  plane  into  which  the  public 
draws  its  members  is  nearer  their  average  than  is  the  plane  that 
forms  in  the  crowd. 

In  the  public  the  manifestations  which  most  resemble  those  of 
the  mob  are  the  craze  and  the  fad. 

The  craze  takes  time  to  develop  its  full  power,  is  followed  by  a 
corresponding  reaction,  and  frequently  leaves  minds  susceptible  to 
other  types  of  craze. 

G 


82  SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

Custom  and  caste  are  unfavorable  to  the  craze. 

The  fad  is  the  sudden  brief  focussing  of  general  attention  and  in- 
terest upon  the  new.  It  occurs  only  in  times  or  societies  in  which 
the  new  enjoys  prestige. 

EXERCISES 

1.  Trace  the  psychological  history  of  a  real  estate  "boom"  in 
an  infant  but  promising  town. 

2.  Discriminate  between  open-mindedness  and  suggestibility. 

3.  May  not  a  craze  bring  about  a  sympathy  which  may  last  after 
the  craze  has  been  forgotten?  If  so,  is  not  the  craze  a  socializing 
agent? 

4.  Which  presents  the  greater  obstacle  to  the  social  sweep  of  an 
idea  or  emotion  —  cultural  difference  (religion,  education,  etc.)  or 
class  difference?     Why? 

5.  Why  is  it  that  a  financial  craze  may  bring  in  its  train  a  re- 
ligious craze,  whereas  the  reverse  is  not  true? 

6.  Compare  in  susceptibility  to  craze  a  hopeful,  prosperous 
people  with  a  hopeless,  miserable  people. 

7.  Show  that  the  proverbial  individualism  of  the  farmer  is  not 
necessarily  the  same  as  individuality. 


CHAPTER  V 

PROPHYLACTICS   AGAINST  MOB   MIND 

In    his    "Ninety-Three"    Victor    Hugo     describes    a  Mob  folk 
mounted  cannon  broken  loose  in  the  hold  of  a  vessel  on  ^^^^'^fy 

social  sta- 

the  high  seas.  With  every  lurch  the  huge  gun  rolls  help-  biUty 
lessly  about,  wrecking  the  interior,  and  threatening  to 
send  the  ship  to  the  bottom  with  a  hole  through  her  side. 
This  pictures  the  situation  of  the  society  with  a  large 
number  of  mob  folk  in  it,  making  a  wild  lunge,  now  here, 
now  there,  as  events  call  up  this  feeling  or  that.  In  a 
community  the  prevalence  of  such  a  type  leads  to  all 
manner  of  folly  —  Millerism,  "holy  rolling,"  vegetarian- 
ism, wonderworking  shrines,  divine  healers,  table-tipping 
seances,  frenzied  religious  revivals,  land  booms,  specula- 
tions and  panics,  the  Belgian  hare  mania,  and  the  walking 
craze,  ending  in  people  crowding  to  watch  rival  female 
pedestrians  try  to  walk  one  thousand  quarter  miles  in  one 
thousand  consecutive  quarter  hours !  In  a  nation  it  leads 
to  political  "tidal  waves"  producing  a  dangerous  rhythm 
in  the  conduct  of  public  affairs,  to  a  costly  wavering  in 
dealing  with  money  or  tariff,  to  a  fickle  sentimental  for- 
eign policy,  and  to  war  fevers  tending,  perhaps,  to 
national  humiliation  and  loss  of  prestige. 

Since  it  is  the  concern  of  organized  society  to  lessen  its 
burden  of  mob  folk,  let  us  consider  the  various  condi- 
tions that  favor  the  growth  of  strong,  robust  individuali- 
ties proof  against  mental  contagion. 

83 


84 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


Education 
for  criticism 


How  to  be- 
come crank 
proof 


1.  Higher  Education.  —  Up  to  a  certain  point  educa- 
tion fosters  mob  mind  by  opening  the  mind  to  novel 
ideas  before  the  critical  faculty  has  been  strengthened. 
The  power  to  value  ideas  lagging  far  behind  the  power 
to  absorb  them,  the  individual,  left  rudderless,  is  obliged 
to  drift  with  the  current.  Now,  a  college  education  is 
not  simply  four  more  high-school  years.  It  ought  to 
equip  the  student  with  standards  and  tests  of  objective 
truth.  It  ought  to  require  him  to  dig  down  past  the 
walls  of  some  science  to  the  bed-rcck  it  rests  on,  so  that 
he  may  learn  in  what  mortar  and  by  what  plumb-line  the 
stones  of  that  science  have  been  laid.  Once  he  has  been 
obliged  to  lay  one  little  stone  in  the  top  course  of  a  single 
turret  of  his  science,  he  will  ever  after  appreciate  the  dif- 
ference between  science  and  humbug,  truth  and  opinion, 
scholarship  and  quackery,  faddism  and  progress.  When 
there  is,  in  every  community,  a  handful  of  well-ballasted 
college  men  and  women,  how  often  will  be  stayed  the 
sweep  of  the  popular  delusion  —  rain  making.  Second 
Coming,  spiritualism,  absent  treatment,  and  the  like ! 

2.  Sound  Knowledge  of  Body,  Mind,  and  Society.  — 
Hygiene,  psychology,  and  sociology  can  ward  off  more 
folly  than  astronomy,  physics,  or  geology.  For  body, 
mind,  and  society  are  the  storm-centres  of  faddism,  the 
breeding  grounds  of  manias.  To  be  folly-proof  here  is  to 
be  fortified  against  nine-tenths  of  the  higher  foolishness. 
The  reason  why  cranks  haunt  these  three  topics  is  that 
they  are  of  supreme  human  interest.  The  prizes  that 
can  be  held  out  for  the  adoption  of  the  Kneipp  cure, 
theosophy,  or  some  social  Utopia  are  the  most-desired 
things  in  the  world  —  immunity  from  disease,  from  sin, 
and  from  poverty. 


PROPHYLACTICS   AGAINST  MOB   MIND  85 

3.  Familiarity  with  that  which  is  Classic.  —  One  ought  steadying 
to  know  the  intellectual  kings  of  the  human  race  —  Job,  J^e  dasslc 
Solomon,  ^schylus,  Plato,  Cervantes,  Bacon,  Montaigne, 
Shakespeare,  Swift,  Goethe,  Burns.     The  first-rank  minds 

that  for  centuries  have  been  able  to  impress  the  genera- 
tions with  their  universal  appeal  are  all  choice,  sane 
spirits,  able  to  rescue  one  from  the  sway  of  the  sensational 
and  ephemeral.  Excellent  are  the  winnowings  of  time. 
"Whenever  I  am  urged  to  read  a  new  book,"  says  the 
sage,  "I  re-read  an  old  one."  Moreover,  acquaintance 
with  the  very  best  in  thought  and  literature  helps  one 
justly  to  rate  the  things  that  people  run  after,  and  to 
ignore  the  "  Lo  here  ! "  "Lo  there!"  of  the  false  prophets. 

4.  The  Influence  of  Sa?ie  Teachers.  —  A  university  is  Ozone  from 
not,  as  some  insist,  "a  collection  of  books."     Books  are  '  ^p^^'^ 
of  all  dates  and  values,  and  hence  indiscriminate,  omniv- 
orous reading  is  no  furnisher  of  sound  ideas.     Guidance 

by  the  specialist  is  needful.  President  Garfield's  ideal 
of  a  college,  "Mark  Hopkins  on  the  other  end  of  a  log," 
recognizes  the  educative  value  of  contact  with  a  master- 
mind. The  greatest  teachers  —  Hopkins,  Agassiz,  Mc- 
Cosh,  Jowett,  Thomas  Hill  Green  —  are  just  those  who, 
by  throwing  the  student  on  his  own  resources,  bring  to 
ripeness  his  individuality.  The  genuine  teacher  wants 
fellows,  not  disciples,  and  his  happiest  hour  is  when  he  ^ 
finds  that  the  cub  he  has  trained  is  now  able  to  hold  him 
at  bay. 

5.  Avoidance    of  the   Sensational    Newspaper.  —  The  Shun  the 
howling  dervishes  of  journalism   propagate   crazes  and     ^55^^™  '^ 
fads  by  distorting  the  significance  of  the  moment.     The 
valuable  new  is,  in  fact,  but  a  slender  fringe  along  the 

vast  expanse  of  the  valuable  old.     It  is  a  hundred  to  one 


86  SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

that  the  old  classic  is  worth  more  than  "the  book  of  the 
month."  Old  wit,  condensed  into  homely  maxims  about 
cleanliness,  avoiding  draughts,  keeping  the  feet  warm  and 
the  head  cool,  save  a  thousand  lives  where  the  new  wrinkles 
in  medicine  or  surgery  —  which  make  newspaper  "copy" 
—  save  a  dozen.  Now,  this  static  side  of  life  is  ignored 
by  the  yellow  press.  By  exaggerating  the  news  it  pre- 
sents things  in  a  false  perspective.  It  can  capture  the 
public's  pennies  by  exploiting  the  unique,  the  startling, 
even  the  imaginary.  Therefore,  to  keep  readers  on  the 
tiptoe  of  expectation,  it  promises  something  extraordinary 
which  is  always  just  on  the  eve  of  happening,  —  but 
doesn't  happen  !  The  Czar  is  about  to  be  blown  up, 
the  Kaiser  is  just  going  mad,  a  cure  for  consumption 
is  ready  to  be  given  to  humanity,  the  flying  machine  is 
soon  to  displace  the  bicycle,  or  the  manufacture  of 
weather  is  about  to  begin  !  So  the  jaded  nerves  are  kept 
on  the  perpetual  thrill,  and,  looking  always  for  some- 
thing wonderful  to  turn  up,  the  deluded  reader  goes  on 
and  on  like  a  donkey  reaching  for  the  sheaf  of  oats  tied 
to  the  end  of  his  wagon  pole.  Moreover,  the  constant 
flitting  from  topic  to  topic  brings  upon  the  confirmed 
newspaper  reader  what  we  may  call  paragraphesis,  i.e., 
inability  to  hold  the  mind  on  a  subject  for  any  length  of 
time.  Reading  so  inimical  to  poise,  self-control,  and 
mental  concentration  as  the  sensational  newspaper  should 
be  cut  down  to  a  minimum. 
Sport  trains  6.  Sports.  —  Physical  health  in  itself  makes  for  intel- 
to  inhibition,  lectual  sclf-posscssiou.  Frequently  sickness  heightens 
suggestibility,  which  may  in  part  account  for  the  "cures" 
at  wonderworking  shrines,  and  the  successes  of  magnetic 
healers.     The  will  made  on  a  sick-bed  lies  under  the  just 


PROPHYLACTICS   AGAINST   MOB   MIND  87 

suspicion  of  "undue  influence,"  in  case  it  favors  those 
who  had  access  to  the  testator  at  the  time.  There  is  a 
pecuhar  value,  however,  in  participation  in  sports  and 
athletic  contests,  for  these  produce  moral  as  well  as 
physical  tone.  The  effort  not  to  "break  training,"  the 
overruling  of  the  impulse  to  give  up  at  moments  of 
weariness  or  discouragement,  the  subordination  of  one's 
playing  to  the  team  work  that  gives  another  man  the 
showy  plays  that  win  applause,  the  keeping  of  one's 
temper  under  hard  knocks,  modest  self-restraint  in  vic- 
tory, and,  above  all,  the  "game"  spirit  in  defeat,  i.e.,  the 
mastery  of  the  impulse  to  whine  or  cry  "unfair,"  or  show 
chagrin,  —  these  triumphs  of  the  will  over  impulse  un- 
doubtedly conduce  to  the  triumph  of  the  will  over  sug- 
gestion. If  "the  battle-fields  of  England  are  won  on 
the  football  fields  of  Eton  and  Rugby,"  it  is  because  the 
coolness  of  the  British  officer  in  a  Dervish  charge  or  an 
Afghan  rush  is  the  same  imperturbability  that  the  seasoned 
football  player  attains  when,  amid  the  cheers  of  excited 
thousands,  he  thinks  quickly  and  decides  unerringly  what 
is  to  be  done. 

7.  Country  Life.  —  The  city  overwhelms  the  mind  with  stability  of 
a  myriad  of  impressions  which  fray  the  nerves  and  weaken  |'^^^°'^'^*'"y 
the  power  of  concentration.  One  comes  at  last  not  to 
hear  the  din  or  see  the  street  signs  but,  nevertheless,  the 
subconscious  is  noting  them  and  the  store  of  nervous 
energy  is  being  depleted.  City-bred  populations  are 
liable  to  be  hysterical,  and  to  be  hysterical  is  to  be  sug- 
gestible. Well  does  Emerson^  remark,  "A  sturdy  lad 
from  New  Hampshire  or  Vermont,  who  in  turn  tries  all 
the  professions,  who  teams  it,  farms  it,  peddles,  keeps  a 

*  Essay  on  Self-reliance. 


88  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

school,  preaches,  edits  a  newspaper,  goes  to  Congress, 
buys  a  township,  and  so  forth  in  successive  years,  and 
always,  hke  a  cat,  falls  on  his  feet,  is  worth  a  hundred  of 
these  city  dolls."  In  cities,  with  cuts  and  fills  and  asphalt, 
the  human  will  visibly  dominates  the  physical  environ- 
ment, and  men  come  readily  to  the  cardinal  assumption 
of  the  mob,  that  nothing  can  stand  against  numbers.  In 
the  country  painful  contact  with  the  unyielding  laws  of 
nature  inspires  reasonableness  and  caution.  The  mob's 
sense  of  invincibility  can  hardly  spring  up  among  people 
under  the  unremitting  necessity  of  adapting  their  efforts 
to  huge  implacable  forces.  In  the  city  some  ways  of 
living  foster  suggestibility,  while  others  check  it.  It  is 
bad  for  people  to  be  crowded  into  barrack-like  tenement- 
houses,  for  such  massing  inspires  the  cheese-mite  con- 
sciousness, makes  the  self  count  for  nothing.  The  best 
correctives  for  urban  propinquity  are  broad  streets,  numer- 
ous parks,  and  the  individual  domicile  with  a  little  space 
about  it;  for  these  preserve  the  selfhood  of  the  family 
group  and  of  the  individual. 
Fireside  or  8.  FamUism.  —  Close  relations  to  a  few  people  —  as 
'^'^■^^  in  the  well-knit  family  —  joined  to  a  vivid  sense  of  obliga- 

tion to  the  community,  seem  to  be  more  favorable  to 
stable  character  than  the  loose  touch-and-go  associations 
of  general  intercourse.  The  Northern  peoples,  obliged 
by  climate  to  centre  their  lives  in  the  circle  about  the  fire- 
side, are  more  resistant  to  popular  currents  than  the 
Southern  peoples,  passing  their  leisure  in  the  buzz  of  the 
street,  the  plaza,  and  the  foyer.  Worshippers  of  the  spirit 
of  the  hearth,  they  are  more  aloof  from  their  fellows, 
slower  therefore  to  merge  with  them  or  be  swept  from 
their  moorings  by  them.     It  seems  to  be  communion  by 


PROPHYLACTICS   AGAINST  MOB   MIND  89 

the  fireside  rather  than  communion  in  the  pubHc  resort 
that  gives  individuahty  long  bracing  roots.  The  with- 
drawn social  self,  although  it  lacks  breadth,  gains  in 
depth,  and  there  is  nothing  to  show  that  the  talkative, 
sociable,  impressionable  Latin  will  sacrifice  himself  more 
readily  for  the  public  weal  than  the  hedged,  reserved 
Englishman.  , , 

9.   Ownership  of  Property.  —  The  protection  and  care   Property  is  a 
of  a  piece  of  property  makes  for  thoughtfulness  and  stead i-   ^/j^^^g^^?^^ 
ness,  individualizes.     One  recipe  for  building  character  in  stampede 
a  boy  is  to  give  him  a  plot  and  let  him  keep  what  he  can 
raise  on  it,  give  him  a  colt  and  let  him  have  its  growth  in 
value.     This  property,  so  responsive  to  care  or  to  neglect, 
is  a  standing  challenge  to  his  self-control.     It  admonishes 
him  to  look  ahead,  to  plan,  to  sacrifice,  to  overrule  his  im- 
pulses  to   idle,   procrastinate,   or  day-dream.     The   city 
parent,  having  nothing  of  this  sort  he  can  make  over  to 
his  boy,  is  puzzled  how  he  shall  make  a  man  of  him. 

A  wide  diffusion  of  land  ownership  has  long  been 
recognized  as  fostering  a  stable  and  conservative  political 
habit.  "The  magic  of  property  turns  sand  into  gold," 
said  Arthur  Young.  It  also  turns  hinds  into  men.  An 
industrial  or  mining  population,  unsteadied  by  ownership, 
is  altogether  more  easily  drawn  into  impulsive  mass  action 
than  a  proprietary  farming  population.  The  man  owns 
his  home,  but  in  a  sense  his  home  owns  him,  checking  his 
rash  impulses,  holding  him  out  of  the  human  whirlpool, 
ever  saying  inaudibly,  "Heed  me,  care  for  me,  or  you  lose 
me!"  With  the  growth  of  great  corporation-held  proper- 
ties in  which  the  individual  has  only  a  fractional  owner- 
ship, property  ceases  to  contribute  much  to  the  indi- 
vidualizing of  persons.     Its  role  is  probably  on  the  wane. 


90 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


Voluntary 
association 
disciplines 
the  impulses 


Let  stability 
be  honored 


I'ride  V5.  love 
as  moral 
mainspring 


10.  Participation  in  Voluntary  Association.  —  The  ac- 
knowledged political  capacity  of  the  English  has  been 
attributed  to  the  experience  of  the  masses  in  their  popu- 
lar religious  organizations,  i.e.,  the  dissenting  churches. 
Participation  in  the  management  of  a  society  develops 
acquaintance  with  the  rules  of  discussion,  tolerance  of 
opponents,  love  of  order,  and  readiness  to  abide  by  the 
will  of  the  majority.  Above  all,  it  teaches  people  to  rate 
the  windbag,  the  ranter,  or  the  sophist  at  his  true  worth, 
and  to  value  the  less  showy  qualities  of  the  man  of  judg- 
ment and  reason.  None  have  a  greater  contempt  for  mob 
mind  and  for  the  wild  and  whirling  words  of  the  stampeder 
than  those  who  have  long  worked  in  voluntary  associa- 
tions. Town-meetings,  religious  societies,  fraternal  organi- 
zations, labor-unions,  granges,  women's  clubs,  and  similar 
societies,  by  diffusing  the  qualities  for  deliberative  asso- 
ciation, diminish  the  amount  of  inflammable  material  in 
the  community. 

11.  Intellectual  Self-possession  as  an  Ideal. — The 
types  of  character  held  up  to  youth  as  models  should  be 
strong  in  point  of  self-control.  Self-consistency,  tran- 
quillity, balance,  robust  independence,  should  be  recog- 
nized as  rare  and  precious  qualities  worthy  of  all  honor 
and  praise.  Let  fad  and  craze  be  made  ridiculous. 
Honor  virile  will  more  than  the  commoner  excellences  of 
heart  and  head.  Writers  like  Emerson,  Thoreau,  and 
Whitman  make  intellectual  individualism  attractive  by 
showing  that  "Bear  ye  one  another's  burdens"  does  not 
mean  "Share  ye  one  another's  delusions." 

12.  Prideful  Morality.  — There  are  two  bases  of  spon- 
taneous right  doing,  neighbor  love  and  self-respect. 
Right  conduct  prompted  by  the  sense  of  self-respect  and 


PROPHYLACTICS   AGAINST  MOB   MIND  91 

honor  seems  to  preserve  selfhood  more  than  if  it  springs 
from  the  sense  of  a  common  life  with  one's  fellows.  Power- 
ful individualities  are  more  apt  to  be  inspired  to  goodness 
by  self-respect  than  by  brotherly  affection.  Haughty 
nobles  develop  among  themselves  a  morality  that  has  its 
mainspring  in  honor,  and  there  is  no  question  that  the 
basis  of  morality  in  modern  society  is  more  akin  to  the 
pride  of  the  mediaeval  castle  than  to  the  humility  of  the 
mediaeval  monastery.^  Sympathy  and  fraternalism  must, 
of  course,  constitute  the  emotional  background  to  the 
moral  life;  but  in  the  advance  of  individualization  the 
true  line  is  to  awaken  a  sense  of  worth  and  dignity  in 
the  common  man,  and  to  hinge  his  social  and  civic  duties 
on  self-respect  rather  than  on  the  spirit  of  the  hive. 

13.  Vital  Religion.  —  A  religion  for  life  and  work  is  Flee  yellow 
more  individualizing  than  a  contemplative  devotional  one,  ^^''S'°'^ 
and  a  religion  that  means  the  domination  of  one's  life  by 
some  principle  of  responsibility  or  some  ideal  of  character 
braces  the  soul  more  than  an  emotional  religion  that 
charms  the  heart  to  goodness  by  appeals  and  examples. 
Introspective  devotionalism  is  enervating.  The  remarks 
of  Coe  ^  help  us  realize  that  there  is  a  yellow  religion  to 
contend  with  as  well  as  a  yellow  journalism. 

"To  take  feeling  out  of  religion  would  be  as  absurd  as 
to  take  parental  or  conjugal  fondness  out  of  the  family. 
Yet  it  is  not  possible  to  maintain  the  family  solely,  or  even 
chiefly,  by  reliance  upon  feelings.  .  .  .  Religion  ought  to 
rest  upon  and  call  into  exercise  all  the  faculties  of  the 
mind,  and  no  superior  sanctity  should  be  ascribed  to  per- 
sons whose  temperamental  make-up  is  sentimental  rather 

'See  Ross,  "Social  Control,"  236-242. 
*"The  Spiritual  Life,"  215-217. 


92  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

than  choleric.  .  .  .  Preserve  the  equilibrium  between 
sensibility  and  will.  When  this  equilibrium  is  lost,  in 
rushes  a  tide  of  religious  vagaries.  At  a  camp-meeting  in 
western  New  York  a  number  of  years  ago  a  brother 
testified  somewhat  as  follows :  '  Brethren,  I  feel  —  I  feel 
—  I  feel  —  I  feel  that  I  feel  —  I  can't  tell  you  how  I  feel, 
but  O  I  feel!  I  feel!' 

"Says  a  prominent  pastor:  'There  are  in  my  church 
two  distinct  classes  of  members.  On  the  one  hand,  there 
is  a  group  of  substantial  persons  of  high  character  and 
agreeable  conduct  who  support  the  enterprises  of  the 
church  with  their  money,  but  are  rarely  or  never  seen  at 
prayer-meeting.  One  never  sees  them  prostrated  before 
God  in  earnest  prayer.  If  a  sinner  should  come  weep- 
ing to  the  altar,  they  would  not  gather  around  to  pray  for 
him.  If  he  should  rise  shouting,  they  would  shake  hands 
with  him  and  tell  him  they  were  glad  he  had  started,  but 
that  is  all.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  a  class  of  mem- 
bers who  can  be  relied  upon  to  be  present  at  the  prayer- 
meeting,  who  would  rush  to  the  altar  to  pray  with  the 
sinner,  and  who,  if  he  should  rise  shouting,  would  scarcely 
know  whether  they  were  in  the  body  or  out  of  the  body. 
Nevertheless,  these  persons  are  without  influence  in  spite 
of  their  unction.  They  are  flighty  and  changeable  in 
their  moods,  lack  organization,  and  their  judgment  is  not 
to  be  trusted.  If  I  were  to  go  on  a  long  journey,  I  would 
not  choose  them  for  companions,  but  rather  persons  of 
the  former  description.  And  if  I  were  to  go  sailing  in  a 
small  boat,  I  would  not  take  one  of  these  prayer-meeting 
members  with  me,  lest  he  should  have  a  spell  of  some 
sort  and  capsize  the  boat.'" 


PROPHYLACTICS   AGAINST   MOB   MIND  93 

SUMMARY 

No  education  is  complete  that  fails  to  provide  one  with  truth- 
filters. 

Against  the  folly  of  craze  and  fad  one  is  forearmed  who  pos- 
sesses exact  knowledge  of  the  matter  in  question. 

No  work  becomes  an  acknowledged  classic  which  is  not  whole- 
some in  tone  and  universal  in  appeal.  The  foundations  of  one's 
culture  should  therefore  be  laid  in  the  classics. 

By  exaggerating  everything  in  the  foreground,  the  sensational 
newspaper  predisposes  the  reader  to  craze  and  fad. 

A  reasonable  participation  in  wholesome  competitive  sports  in- 
volving team  work  strengthens  self-control. 

It  is  difficult  to  build  a  stable  individuality  in  the  city-bred. 

Self-sufficing  home-life,  although  it  narrows  the  sympathies, 
favors  depth  of  character. 

The  responsibilities  of  ownership  are  steadying. 

The  appeal  to  self-respect  and  honor  individualizes. 

A  purely  emotional  religion  leads  to  flabbiness. 

EXERCISES 

1.  Distinguish  between  suggestibility  and  sociality. 

2.  How  does  the  experience  of  responsibility  aflfect  one's  respon- 
siveness to  mental  contagion?     Why? 

3.  Compare  manual  training  with  literary  studies  as  a  developer 
of  objectivity  and  self-control. 

4.  What  are  the  reactions  upon  character  of  boys'  clubs,  play-      *^ 
ground  self-government,  the  George  Junior  Republic,  etc.  ? 

5.  Compare  business  with  industry  in  its  effect  on  one's  power 
to  resist  suggestion. 

6.  What  special  reason  is  there  why  in  the  United  States  mental 
epidemic  has  shown  itself  more  in  the  rural  than  in  the  urban 
population? 

7.  Study  the  religious  currents  of  the  Reformation  epoch,  and 
find  by  what  means  certain  sects  were  able  to  escape  the  follies, 
fanaticisms,  and  crazes  of  the  time  and  become  the  parents  of  the 
great  Protestant  denominations. 


CHAPTER  VI 

FASHION 

Fashion  is  FASHION  IS  a  series  of  recurring  changes  in  the  choices 

eressive  °^  ^  g^o^P  ^f  people  whlch,  though  they  may  be  accom- 
panied by  utiHty,  are  not  determined  by  it.  The  fact  that 
the  new  departure  is  not  made  because  it  is  better  differen- 
tiates the  changes  that  constitute  progress  from  those  which 
constitute  fashion.  Fashion  is  marked  by  rhythmic  imi- 
tation and  innovation,  by  alternate  uniformity  and  change, 
but  neither  of  these  phases  obeys  the  principle  of  utility. 
The  prevalence  of  fountain-pens  or  alarm-clocks  is  due 
to  utility.  The  telephone  and  the  cash  register  are  uni- 
versal, but  not  fashionable.  The  ornamental  tiles  of  a 
fireplace  may  be  a  fashion,  but  not  the  tiles  of  a  bath- 
room floor.  Progress  follows  the  line  of  advantage,  sub- 
stituting always  the  better  adapted;  it  never  returns  on 
itself,  never  substitutes  fish-oil  for  kerosene,  horse-cars 
for  trolley  cars.  Fashion,  on  the  other  hand,  moves  in 
cycles.  Could  we  run  the  successive  fashions  of  woman's 
hat  or  sleeve  or  skirt  during  a  century  through  a  biograph 
rapidly,  what  a  systole  and  diastole  we  should  see,  an  al- 
ternating dilation  and  contraction  like  the  panting  of  some 
queer  animal ! 

A  style  is  a  uniformity  of  practice,  but  it  may  or  may 
not  imply  a  psychic  uniformity,  i.e.,  an  agreement  of 
belief  or  feeling.  So  far  as  the  hoop-skirt  is  believed  to 
be  the  best  possible  garment,  or  is  felt  to  be  becoming  and 

94 


FASHION  95 

feminine,  its  vogue  concerns  social  psychology.     But  so  Outward 
far  as  women  without  illusions  about  it  wear  the  hideous  '^°"  ^f™u^ 

usually  be- 

thing  to  avoid  being  conspicuous,  or  to  get  the  prestige  tokens  an 
of  "stylish,"  the  practice  has  no  psychic  plane  behind  it,  fo^[ty^°"' 
and  it  does  not  interest  the  social  psychologist.  In  general, 
Veblen  is  right  when  he  says :  "  So  long  as  it  is  a  novelty, 
people  very  generally  find  the  new  style  attractive.  The 
prevailing  fashion  is  felt  to  be  beautiful.  This  is  due 
partly  to  the  relief  it  affords  in  being  different  from  what 
went  before  it,  partly  to  its  being  reputable.  .  .  .  The 
canon  of  reputability  to  some  extent  shapes  our  tastes, 
so  that  under  its  guidance  anything  will  be  accepted  as 
becoming  until  its  novelty  wears  off,  or  until  the  warrant 
of  reputability  is  transferred  to  a  new  and  novel  structure 
serving  the  same  general  purpose.  That  the  alleged 
beauty,  or  'loveliness,'  of  the  styles  in  vogue  at  any  given 
time  is  transient  and  spurious  only  is  attested  by  the 
fact  that  none  of  the  many  shifting  fashions  will  bear 
the  test  of  time.  When  seen  in  the  perspective  of  half  a 
dozen  years  or  more,  the  best  of  our  fashions  strike  us  as 
grotesque  if  not  unsightly."  ^  "A  fancy  bonnet  of  this  year's 
model  unquestionably  appeals  to  our  sensibilities  to-day 
much  more  forcibly  than  an  equally  fancy  bonnet  of  the 
model  of  last  year.  .  .  .  The  high  gloss  of  a  gentleman's 
hat  or  of  a  patent-leather  shoe  has  no  more  of  intrinsic 
beauty  than  a  similarly  high  gloss  on  a  threadbare  sleeve; 
and  yet  there  is  no  question  but  that  all  well-bred  people 
(in  the  Occidental  civilized  communities)  instinctively  and 
unaffectedly  cleave  to  the  one  as  a  phenomenon  of  great 
beauty,  and  eschew  the  other  as  offensive  to  every  sense 
to  which  it  can  appeal.     It  is  extremely  doubtful  if  any 

»  "The  Theory  of  the  Leisure  Class,"  177. 


96 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


Fashion 
springs  from 
the  passion 
for  sclf- 
individuali- 
zation 


one  could  be  induced  to  wear  such  a  contrivance  as  the 
high  hat  of  civilized  society,  except  for  some  urgent  reason 
based  on  other  than  aesthetic  grounds."  ^ 

Whatever  the  illusions  it  may  create,  the  ultimate 
raison  d'etre  of  fashion  is  the  passion  for  self-individualiza- 
tion.  It  is  eagerness  to  distinguish  one's  self  from  one's 
fellows  that  makes  even  savages  so  fond  of  ornament. 
This  is  one  secret  of  the  enormous  profits  of  trade  with 
unsophisticated  peoples.  If  their  vanity  is  shrewdly 
played  upon,  they  will  strip  themselves  of  everything 
valuable  they  possess  in  return  for  small  quantities  of 
bright  beads,  tinsel,  gaudy  ribbons,  and  prints,  which  may 
serve  them  as  means  of  self-individualization.  On  some 
of  the  South  Sea  Islands  early  travellers  found  that  while 
no  one  would  give  anything  for  new  kinds  of  fowls,  do- 
mestic animals,  or  useful  devices,  "a  few  red  feathers 
would  buy  the  whole  island."  At  first  the  mark  of  dis- 
tinction most  preferred  is  a  trophy  of  the  chase  or  war 
—  head-dress  of  eagle's  feathers,  necklace  of  bear's  teeth 
or  claws,  girdle  of  scalps,  bracelets  of  the  jawbone  or 
clavicle  of  one's  foes.  These  document  one's  prowess. 
The  trophy,  to  have  any  virtue,  must  be  genuine  —  an 
evidence  of  the  wearer's  prowess,  and  not  of  the  prowess 
of  another.  Hence  trophies  bought  or  inherited  confer 
no  honor.  Eventually  the  idea  of  embellishment  arises, 
and  with  it  a  host  of  objects  which  are  not  trophies  come 
to  be  worn.  These  artificial  ornaments  are  at  first  at- 
tached to  the  body,  and  hence  evidence  how  much  pain 
the  wearer  has  consented  to  endure.  Labrets  and  nose- 
rings, like  the  honorable  face-scars  the  German  student 
duellist  is  so  proud  of,  show  one's  grit.     With  the  growth 

'  "The  Theory  of  the  Leisure  Class,"  131. 


, 


FASHION  97 

of  dress,  ornament  attached  to  the  person  gradually 
yields  to  ornament  attached  to  the  dress,  the  more  painful 
ornament-carrying  mutilations  being  abandoned  first. 
This  shows  that  man  is  not,  after  all,  quite  an  irrational 
being;    occasionally   he   evinces   a   scintilla   of   common  J 

sense.  The  greater  conservatism  of  woman  makes  her 
persist  in  ornament,  even  mutilation  (ear  piercing,  waist 
pinching),  after  man  has  totally  abandoned  such  folly. 
But  in  such  conservative  relations  as  warrior,  officer,  or 
courtier,  man  still  wears  ornaments.  Starr  finds  that 
"ornament  dwindles  with  progress  toward  a  true  civiliza- 
tion," that  "  there  is  no  place  for  ornament  in  a  true  de- 
mocracy," and  that  "a  revival  of  ornament  indicates  a 
retardation  of  democratic  ideas." 

The  passion  for  inequality  lies  very  deep  in  human  The  self- 
nature,  and  we  Americans  have  our  share.     Brooks  says :  ^  differentiat- 

'  _  •'  ing  impulse 

"The  lack  of  sympathy  with  heroic  and  unselfish  at-  is  still  pow- 
tempts  to  realize  equality  is  itself  evidence  of  the  com-  ^^ " 
mon  dislike  of  equahty.  One  of  the  later  experiments,  at 
Ruskin,  Tennessee,  for  which  great  hopes  had  been  felt, 
has  met  disaster.  I  have  gathered  many  opinions  from 
the  press,  but  among  them  all  no  kindly  note  of  apprecia- 
tion. Has  the  world  at  heart  a  fixed,  unconscious  hatred 
of  equality?  " 

"Heraldry  now  is  a  charmed  word  for  multitudes  of 
very  humble  people.  Librarians  are  suddenly  plagued 
by  the  importunity  for  genealogical  evidence  of  distin- 
guished ancestry.  Daughters  of  this  and  daughters  of 
that;  clubs,  coteries,  everywhere  springing  into  life, 
bound  to  discover  proof  that  they  are  not  quite  like  other 
people.     I  saw  a  Colonial  Dame  flushed  with  delight  be- 

*  "The  Social  Unrest,"  233-236. 


98  SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

cause  on  a  great  occasion  in  another  city  her  badge  had 
given  her  showy  precedence  over  certain  of  the  Daughters 
of  the  Revolution,  who  at  home  never  failed  to  let  her 
feel  her  social  inferiority.  She  said^  'In  all  my  life  no 
minute  ever  gave  me  a  joy  like  that.'  ^  The  women  need 
have  no  shame,  they  cannot  outdo  the  men  in  this  pur- 
suit. Scarcely  a  town  that  is  not  gay  with  embellished 
orders  stamped  with  every  display  of  royal  and  knightly 
nomenclature.  Read  the  list  af  officers  from  the  Sublime 
Grand  Master  down,  and  ask  what  aristocracy  in  history 
ever  went  farther  in  its  hunt  for  feathers.  Two  or  three 
years  ago  there  was  a  gathering  of  three  or  four  orders 
in  Boston.  From  a  single  copy  of  the  Herald  I  take  the 
following  modest  titles,  —  Grand  Dictator,  Grand  Chan- 
cellor, Supreme  President,  Grand  Vice  Dictator,  Supreme 
Warden.  This  outbreak  is  a  droll  commentary  upon  a 
society  that  has  found  so  much  to  ridicule  in  the '  haughty 
infirmities'  of  the  Old  World.  It  has  sprung,  however, 
straight  from  human  nature.^  We  have  won  wealth  and 
some  leisure  that  have  brought  us  into  contact  with 
foreign  sources  of  distinction  that  we  lack.  No  people 
ever  displayed  the  passion  for  inequality  more  greedily 
than  we.  One  builds  a  yacht,  and  if  he  can  dine  an 
English  prince  at  the  Cowes  races,  or  entice  the  German 
emperor  on  board  at  Kiel,  this  single  breath  of  royal 
atmosphere  at  once  endows  the  enterprising  host  with 


'  She  calls  to  mind  the  lady  who  assured  Herbert  Spencer  that  the 
consciousness  of  being  perfectly  well  dressed  gave  her  "a  peace  such  as 
religion  cannot  give." 

^  "When  a  man  has  discovered  why  men  in  Bond  Street  wear  black 
hats,  he  will  at  the  same  moment  have  discovered  why  men  in  Timbuctoo 
wear  red  feathers."  —  Chesterton,  "  Heretics,"  143. 


FASHION  99 

the  rarest  social  privileges  at  home.     Every  circle  breaks 
at  the  touch  of  the  king's  hand. 

"This  craving  to  index  one's  self  off  from  others,  by  any 
mark  that  can  be  hit  upon,  is  not  very  vicious,  perhaps 
not  always  bad,  but  it  is  the  essence  of  inequality  and 
shows  how  rooted  an  instinct  it  is  within  us.  I  asked 
the  head  of  a  fashionable  city  school  about  the  parents 
that  brought  their  daughters  to  her.  'It  is,'  she  said, 
'so  unusual  as  to  surprise  me  when  a  parent  shows  any 
other  real  anxiety  than  to  secure  for  her  child  certain 
social  connections.  Education  has  no  meaning  except  as 
it  furthers  this  end.'  If  this  is  snobbish,  what  is  it  for 
working-girls'  clubs  to  exclude  household  domestics?  I 
have  known  Boston  shop-girls  at  their  dances  to  put  up 
a  placard  marked  'No  servants  admitted.'  No  social 
group  that  can  be  named  is  free  from  this  itching." 

The  healthy  democratic  spirit  does  not  deny  that  there  Democracy 
are  important  worth-differences  among  people,  nor  does  recognizes 

J^  o    r      1      5  certain  kinds 

it  frown  upon  the  passion  for  self-individualization.  Its  of  inequaUty 
point  of  insistence  is  that  the  worth-degrees  recognized 
by  society  ought  to  relate  primarily  to  intellect,  character, 
and  achievement,  rather  than  to  apparel  and  equipage. 
The  idea  is  that  the  attributes  taken  as  the  basis  of  social 
distinction  should  be  deep-lying  rather  than  superficial, 
important  rather  than  trivial. 

Fashion  consists  of  (i)  imitation,  (2)  differentiation.     In  The  fashion 
imitation,  the  inferior  asserts  his  equality  with  the  supe-  p™'^^^^  ^ 

^  n  ./  r         {^Q  move- 

rior  by  copying  him  in  externals.     But  this  endeavor  of  ments 
the  inferiors  to  assimilate  themselves  upward  is  countered 
by  the  effort  of  the  superiors  to  differentiate  themselves 
afresh  from  their  inferiors  by  changing  the  style.     The 
prompter  the  imitation  of  the  inferior,  the  more  frequently 


lOO  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

must  a  new  fashion  be  launched.  The  death  of  a  fashion 
is  seen  when  feather  boas  go  out  as  soon  as  the  domestics 
have  come  to  adopt  them;  when  ladies  renounce  the  bi- 
cycle because  the  servant  girl  has  one.  The  terms  "  gentle- 
man" and  "lady"  are  abandoned  as  soon  as  common 
people  employ  them  profusely.^  Then  it  is  remarked 
how  "noble"  are  the  ancient  terms  "man"  and  "woman"  ! 
When  the  barber  and  the  fortune-teller  call  themselves 
"Professor,"  the  members  of  the  college  faculty  discover 
the  "simple  dignity"  that  lies  in  the  appellation  "Mr." 
The  impulse  to  differentiate  has  been  stimulated  by  the 
disappearance  of  class  costume  and  the  coming  in  of 
democratic  competition.  The  fountains  of  the  great 
deep  have  broken  forth,  and  the  artisan's  wife  on  the 
frontier  of  civilization  follows  closely  the  Paris  fashions. 
Thus  Bryce^  observes:  "I  remember  to  have  been 
dawdling  in  a  bookstore  in  a  small  town  in  Oregon, 
when  a  lady  entered  to  inquire  if  a  monthly  magazine, 
whose  name  was  unknown  to  me,  had  yet  arrived.  When 
she  was  gone  I  asked  the  salesman  who  she  was  and  what 
was  the  periodical  she  wanted.  He  answered  that  she 
was  the  wife  of  a  railway  workman,  that  the  magazine 
was  a  journal  of  fashions,  and  that  the  demand  for  such 
journals  was  large  and  constant  among  women  of  the 
wage-earning  class  in  the  town.  This  set  me  to  observ- 
ing female  dress  more  closely,  and  it  turned  out  to  be 
perfectly  true  that  the  women  in  these  little  towns  were 

*  To  a  Baltimore  hospital  was  brought  a  negress  with  a  bad  bite  on 
the  back  of  her  neck.  While  dressing  it  the  surgeon  remarked:  "I 
can't  imagine  what  animal  made  this  wound.  It  is  too  large  for  the  bite 
of  a  cat  or  dog  and  too  small  for  the  bite  of  a  horse."  "  'Deed,  suh," 
exclaimed  the  patient,  "it  wa'n't  no  animal  at  all.    It  wuz  anudder  lady !" 

*"The  American  Commonwealth,"  II,  ch.  CIV. 


FASHION  loi 

following  the  Parisian  fashions  very  closely  and  were,  in 
fact,  ahead  of  the  majority  of  English  ladies  belonging  to 
the  professional  and  mercantile  classes." 

There  have  existed  societies  in  which  the  inferior  were  The  sup- 
not  allowed   presumptuously   to   vie   with   the   superior.  ^o^^'°t"tive 
"In  old  Japan,"  says  Hearn,^  "sumptuary  laws  probably  cunsumption 
exceeded  in  multitude  and  minuteness  anything  of  which 
Western  legal  history  yields  record."     "  Every   class    of 
Japanese  society  was  under  sumptuary  regulation."     "  The 
nature  of  them  is  best  indicated  by  the  regulations  apply- 
ing to  the  peasantry.     Every  detail  of  the  farmer's  exist- 
ence was  prescribed  for  by  law,  —  from  the  size,  form, 
and  cost  of  his  dwelling,  down  even  to  such  trifling  matters 
as  the  number  and  the  quality  of  the  dishes  to  be  served 
to  him  at  meal-times. "     "A  farmer  with  a  property  assessed 
at  twenty  koku  (of  rice)  was  not  allowed  to  build  a  house 
more  than  thirty-six  feet  long,  or  to  use  in  building  it  such 
superior  qualities  of  wood  as  keyaki  or  hinoki.     The  roof 
of  his  house  was  to  be  made  of  bamboo  thatch  or  straw ; 
and  he  was  strictly  forbidden  the  comfort  of  floor  mats. 
On  the  occasion  of  the  wedding  of  his  daughter  he  was 
forbidden  to  have  fish  or  any  roasted  food  served  at  the 
wedding    feast.     The    women    of    his    family    were    not 
allowed  to  wear  leather  sandals:    they  might  wear  only 
straw  sandals  or  wooden  clogs;    and  the  thongs  of  the 
sandals  or  the  clogs  were  to  be  made  of  cotton.     Women 
were  further  forbidden  to  wear  hair  bindings  of  silk,  or 
hair  ornaments  of   tortoise-shells;    but  they  might  wear 
wooden  combs  and   combs  of  bone  —  not   ivory.     The 
men  were  forbidden  to  wear  stockings,  and  their  sandals 
were  to  be  made  of  bamboo.     They  were  also  forbidden 

'  "Japan:   An  Interpretation,"  182,  184,  186. 


I02  SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

to  use  sunshades,  or  paper  umbrellas."  "  In  Izumo  I 
found  that,  prior  to  Meiji,  there  were  sumptuary  laws 
prescribing  not  only  the  material  of  the  dresses  to  be 
worn  by  the  various  classes,  but  even  the  colors  of  them, 
and  the  designs  of  the  patterns.  The  size  of  rooms,  as 
well  as  the  size  of  houses,  was  fixed  there  by  law,  —  also 
the  height  of  buildings  and  of  fences,  the  number  of  win- 
dows, the  material  of  construction." 
The  dis-  Certain  restrictions  on  the  consumption  of  the  lower 

oFsumTu-''     classes  prevailed  in  Europe  during  the  later  Middle  Ages, 
ary  laws         Long  since,  however,  these  bulwarks  to  upper-class  pride 
have  been  swept  away,  and  there  is  now  no  station  in  life 
from  which  a  person  may  not  aspire  to  resemble  those  of 
a  higher  station. 
Caste  In  immobile  caste  societies  the  inferior  does  not  think 

'"dtive  coiv-  ^^  ^P^^E  the  superior,  and  hence  the  superior  is  not  obliged 
sumption  to  dcvisc  new  styles.  Says  Veblen:*  "Certain  relatively 
stable  styles  and  types  of  costume  have  been  worked  out 
in  various  parts  of  the  world ;  as,  for  instance,  aniong  the 
Japanese,  Chinese,  and  other  Oriental  nations;  likewise 
among  the  Greeks,  Romans,  and  other  Eastern  peoples 
of  antiquity;  so  also,  in  later  times,  among  the  peasants 
of  nearly  every  country  of  Europe.  These  national  or 
popular  costumes  are  in  most  cases  adjudged  by  com- 
petent critics  to  be  more  becoming,  more  artistic,  than  the 
fluctuating  styles  of  modern  civilized  apparel.  At  the 
same  time  they  are  also,  at  least  usually,  less  obviously 
wasteful;  .  .  .  They  belong  in  countries  and  localities 
and  times  where  the  population,  or  at  least  the  class  to 
which  the  costume  in  question  belongs,  is  relatively  homo- 
geneous, stable,  and  immobile.     That  is  to  say,  stable 

'  1  "The  Theory  of  the  Leisure  Class,"  175. 


FASHION  103 

costumes  which  will  bear  the  test  of  time  and  perspective 
are  worked  out  under  circumstances  where  the  norm  of 
conspicuous  waste  asserts  itself  less  imperatively  than  it 
does  in  the  large  modern  civilized  cities,  whose  relatively 
mobile,  wealthy  population  to-day  sets  the  pace  in  matters 
of  fashion." 

In  our  society  acquired  social  values  prevail  over  hered-  Acceleration 
itary  social  values.     The  phrase  "in  the  swim"  gives  a  p  *  ^  ^^  ■ 

■'  ^  t>  ion  process 

hint  of  the  unstable  medium  in  which  one  must  support  in  a  com- 
one's  self.  The  style  of  living,  therefore,  quickly  affects  democracy 
social  standing,  and  we  have  no  reason  to  marvel  that  so 
much  rivalry  is  centred  in  this  sphere.  In  feudal  society 
one  did  not  enhance  his  good  repute  so  much  by  profuse 
expenditure  as  by  scrupulous  abstinence  from  all  pro- 
ductive employment  —  "the  performance  of  leisure,"  as 
Veblen  aptly  terms  it.  But  when,  with  the  prosperity  of 
the  towns,  the  principal  incomes  come  from  city  commerce 
rather  than  from  country  estates,  the  basis  of  social  grad-  1 

ing  comes  to  be  conspicuous  consumption  rather  than  con- 
spicuous leisure;  for  merchant  princes  and  bankers, 
unlike    rent  receivers,  must    attend    to    business.     They  fcj 

cannot  delegate  their  affairs.  Hence  commercial  aristoc- 
racies —  such  as  those  of  Venice,  Genoa,  Florence,  and  1 
Antwerp  —  are  distinguished  for  a  sumptuous  manner  of 
life,  far  more  splendid  than  that  of  the  feudal  lords.  It 
was  they,  in  fact,  who  taught  the  feudal  lords  to  dismiss 
their  useless  retainers  and  surround  themselves  with 
luxury.  Now,  ours  is  a  hustle  civilization,  in  which  osten- 
tatious idling  enjoys  no  such  social  consideration  as  it  did 
in  the  decadence  of  feudal  society.  Hence,  a  cut-throat 
competition  for  distinction  is  concentrated  on  style  of 
living.     Social  racing,  the  endeavor  of  the  inferior  to  ape 


104  SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

the  superior  and  of  the  superior  to  elude  him  by  side- 
stepping or  setting  a  hotter  pace,  becomes  ever  more  frantic 
and  taxing.^ 
Why  fashions       Fashions,    consequently,    are   becoming   less   and    less 

fn%^ess°'^'     ^*^^^^-       ^^^^   fashion   changed   slowly.       "Patching" 
stable  Stayed  in  a  century,  so  also  did  the  pointed  shoes  of  Rich- 

ard II.  But,  owing  to  the  great  abundance  and  cheap- 
ness of  textile  materials,  the  imitative  power  of  the  inferior 
has  been  greatly  augmented.  The  wealth  of  society  is 
great  enough  to  permit  the  waste  of  fashion.  A  larger  and 
larger  share  of  its  resources  may  be  squandered  in  vying 
for  social  distinction.  Formerly,  garments  were  handed 
down  from  parents  to  children,  and  putting  them  aside  in 
obedience  to  fashion  would  have  been  quite  too  prodigal; 
even  now  fashion  staggers  at  fine  lace,  cashmere  shawls, 
Persian  rugs,  etc.  Again,  the  technique  of  imitation  has 
improved.  Says  Sombart:^  "It  is  one  of  the  master 
tricks  of  our  manufacturers  for  making  their  wares  more 
salable  to  give  them  the  appearance  of  those  objects  which 
enter  into  the  consumption  of  a  higher  social  stratum.  It 
is  the  greatest  pride  of  the  clerk  to  wear  the  same  shirts 
as  the  capitalist,  of  a  servant  girl  to  put  on  the  same  jacket 
as  my  lady,  of  Mrs.  Butcher  to  own  the  same  plush  fur- 
niture as  Mrs.  Privy  Councillor.  This  striving  is  as  old 
as  social  differentiation,  but  never  could  it  be  so  gratified 
as  in  our  time  when  there  are  no  longer  limits  to  clever 
imitation,  when,  whatever  the  costliness  of  the  material 

*  When  more  than  half  of  San  Francisco  was  wiped  out,  it  was  noticed 
that  many  did  not  feel  their  losses  as  much  as  might  have  been  antici- 
pated. One  reason  was  that  the  losses  were  so  universal  that  the  losers 
sufifered  in  creature  comforts  but  not  in  social  consideration.  All  were 
in  the  same  boat,  so  there  was  no  place  for  envy. 

^  "  Das  moderne  Kapitalismus,"  II,  343-344. 


FASHION  105 

or  the  elaborateness  of  the  form,  a  counterfeit  can  soon  be 
put  on  the  market  at  a  tenth  of  the  original  price. 

"  Again,  note  the  promptness  —  thanks  to  newspapers, 
fashion  journals,  travel,  etc.  —  with  which  a  new  style 
becomes  known  to  everybody.*  When,  a  few  years  ago, 
the  drummer  unpacked  his  sample  case  in  some  out-of- 
the-way  town,  a  circle  of  gaping  spectators  formed,  and 
one  exclamation  of  admiration  after  another  escaped  their 
lips.  Now  it  is,  'Excuse  me,  but  I  recently  read  in  my 
paper  of  such  and  such  a  style,  you  don't  seem  to  have  it 
here  at  all,  my  dear  sir!'  So,  scarcely  has  the  long 
ladies'  paletot  (cost  $20)  penetrated  to  the  knowledge  of 
the  belles  of  a  provincial  town,  before  the  local  merchants 
will  be  offering  'the  same  thing  exactly'  at  $7.50.  When 
with  much  trouble  is  devised  a  summer-shirt  style  that 
not  every  young  fellow  can  afford,  —  the  unstarched  col- 
ored shirt  with  the   attached  cuffs,  —  the  next  summer 

'Says  Miss  Moss  {Atlantic,  94,  p.  265):  "Addison's  Spectator  tells 
how  '  a  fashion  makes  its  progress  much  slower  into  Cumberland  than 
Cornwall.  I  have  heard  that  the  Steenkirk  (a  military  cravat  dating 
from  the  battle  nineteen  years  before)  arrived  but  two  months  ago  at 
Newcastle.'  In  sober  truth,  it  took  longer  for  Edinburgh  to  hear  the 
news  of  Waterloo  than  it  now  does  for  Freeland,  Pennsylvania,  to  learn 
that  white  was  worn  at  the  Grand  Prix.  After  that  Freeland  also  wore 
white  until  an  English  duchess  came  out  in  scarlet,  upon  which,  by  some 
magic  tour  deforce  in  the  dry -goods  trade,  Freeland  immediately  turned 
geranium  color.  Formerly,  even  in  great  cities,  a  fashion  required  some 
time  to  permeate  the  masses,  now  a  fresh  mode  strikes  the  whole  con- 
tinent broadside,  reaching  all  classes  simultaneously.  The  Plaza, 
Madison  Avenue,  the  Tenderloin,  and  Rivington  Street  all  wear  the  same 
costume  at  Easter,  varying  only  in  fineness  of  material,  not  a  whit  in  general 
effect.  The  cunningest  Heloise  or  Annette  in  her  Fifth  Avenue  'Petit 
Paris,'  strive  as  she  may,  cannot  keep  her  one-hundred-and-fifty-dollar 
'confection'  one  little  move  ahead  of  apparel  marked  'Four  ninety- 
eight'  in  Fourteenth  Street,  and  'One  ninety-eight'  on  the  Bowery." 


io6 


SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 


Distinctive 
features  of 
modern 
fashion 


every  shop  will  carry  fancy  shirts  of  just  the  same  pattern 
at  25  cents  apiece.  One  who,  in  the  possession  of  a 
walking-stick  with  silver-mounted  handle,  feels  at  last 
secure  from  the  rivalry  of  the  vulgar  sees  the  next  day  the 
same  thing  with  a  cheap  pewter  handle  offered  at  a  quarter. 
Thus  springs  up  a  veritable  steeplechase  after  new  patterns 
and  materials.  This  rapid  vulgarization  of  every  novelty 
forces  those  who  take  a  proper  pride  in  themselves  to  think 
constantly  on  devising  new  styles.  This  mad  hunt  for 
novelties  becomes  wilder  and  wilder  with  every  advance 
in  the  technique  of  production  and  distribution." 

The  characteristics  of  modern  fashion  as  distinguished 
from  earlier  fashion  are :  — 

1.  TJie  Immense  Number  of  Objects  to  which  it  Extends. 
—  It  touches  cravats,  umbrellas,  walking-sticks,  visiting- 
cards,  note-paper,  toilet  articles,  docking  horses'  tails,  the 
high  check-rein,  the  pug,  the  exaggerated  bulldog,  the 
German  poodle  "raised  under  a  bureau,"  "a  dog-and-a- 
half  long  and  half-a-dog  high !" 

2.  The  Uniformity  of  Fashion.  —  In  the  Renaissance 
period  fashion  was  limited  to  a  single  city  or  class.  Now 
it  knows  no  territorial  or  class  limits.  There  is  only  one 
fashion  at  a  time.  The  women  look  to  Paris,  the  men 
look  to  London.  If  the  Prince  of  Wales  forgets  his 
watch  and  shows  himself  in  his  opera  box  with  no  chain, 
every  watch  chain  in  the  house  disappears  by  the  close  of 
the  first  act. 

3.  The  Maddening  Tempo  of  the  Changes  of  Fashion.  — 
A  wave  of  fashion  passes  downward  through  all  ranks 
and  outward  to  the  rim  of  the  Occident  with  ever  greater 
speed.  Hence  the  waves  must  be  more  frequent  if  the 
superiors  are  to  differentiate  themselves  successfully,  and 


FASHION  107 

SO  the  pulsations  are  ever  swifter.     In  ladies'  fashions 
there  are  sometimes  four  or  five  changes  in  a  season. 

But  there  are  influences  undermining  this  tyranny.  The  rebel- 
People  may  conform  to  a  fashion  to  assimilate  themselves  |'o"  a^g^mst 
to  the  superior,  or  in  order  not  to  be  conspicuous.  The 
latter  class  change  as  tardily  as  they  dare  and  as  little  as 
they  can.  Their  influence,  therefore,  is  against  extrava- 
gances of  style  and  against  frequent  changes.  They  are 
always  on  the  rear  slope  of  the  wave  dragging  it  down. 
Since  the  number  of  such  people  of  independent  judgment, 
good  taste,  and  appreciation  of  health  and  comfort  is  in- 
creasing, they  will  in  time  outnumber  the  pace  setters,  con- 
formists, and  fashionables.  Already  we  have  dropped 
such  irrational  badges  of  social  standing  as  feet  pinching, 
nose-rings,  labrets,  cheek  slits,  flattened  crania,  and  other 
mutilations.  Choking  collars,  high  heels,  trains,  and  face 
painting  ^  will  likewise  go.  The  plane  of  intelligence  and 
good  sense  is  rising.  From  1855  to  1865  all  the  women, 
including  as  sweet  women  as  ever  lived,  wore  the  crinoline. 
Twice  since  then  its  return  has  been  decreed,  and  twice 
the  monstrosity  has  been  beaten  back  into  limbo.  Not 
that  we  are  to  look  for  any  immediate  let-up  in  social  com- 
petition ;  but  the  growing  body  of  independent  people  will 
reduce  the  instability,  tyranny,  extravagance,  hideousness, 

^  After  all,  we  have  come  some  distance  from  what  Mrs.  Bent  saw  in 
Arabia.  "I  never  saw  such  dreadful  objects  as  the  women  make  of 
themselves  by  painting  their  faces.  When  they  lift  their  veils  one  would 
hardly  think  them  human.  I  saw  eyes  painted  to  resemble  blue  and  red 
fish,  with  their  heads  pointing  to  the  girl's  nose.  The  upper  part  of  the 
face  was  yellow,  the  lower  green  with  small  black  spots,  a  green  stripe 
down  the  nose,  the  nostrils  like  two  red  cherries,  the  paint  being  shiny. 
Three  red  stripes  were  on  the  forehead,  and  there  was  a  red  mustache, 
there  being  also  green  stripes  on  the  yellow  cheeks."  —  "Southern 
Arabia,"  123. 


io8 


SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 


Liberaliza- 
tion of 
costume 


and  irrationality  of  fashion,  and  thus  cause  social  distinc- 
tion to  be  sought  and  won  in  other  ways.  A  growing  loath- 
ing for  allotting  social  esteem  according  to  purely  facti- 
tious and  superficial  tests  and  an  increasing  respect  for 
achievement  and  inner  worth  will  blunt  the  keenness  of 
the  struggle  for  external  conformity.  It  is  not  to  be  for- 
gotten that  up  to  the  nineteenth  century  men  were  more 
slaves  of  fashion  than  women.  They  were  emancipated  by 
the  democratic  movement,  which  broke  the  back  of  male 
fashionableness  by  inducing  the  upper  classes  to  accept 
the  plain  frock-coat  of  the  bourgeoisie. 

Much  can  be  done  by  association  in  dress  reform.  By 
cooperating  radicals  can  keep  one  another  in  courage  and 
countenance.  The  growing  resort  to  athletics  by  women 
accustoms  to  unconventional  and  comfortable  costume  for 
gymnasium,  tennis,  rowing,  cycling,  and  bathing,  and 
thereby  narrows  the  sway  of  fashion.  The  male  compe- 
tition that  must  be  sustained  by  business  and  professional 
women  also  compels  the  rationalizing  of  dress.  Reform 
will  probably  come,  not  by  the  general  adoption  of  some 
costume  in  flat  contrast  to  fashionable  apparel,  but  by 
adding  to  the  number  of  occasions  on  which  rational  cos- 
tumes already  devised  may  be  worn. 

SUMMARY 

Fashion  springs  from  the  desire  to  individualize  one's  self  from 
one's  fellows. 

It  consists  of  a  succession  of  planes  in  respect  to  some  feature  or 
features  of  consumption. 

It  embraces  two  distinct  processes  —  imitation  and  differentiation. 

Fashion  does  not  appear  in  a  caste  society  and  may  be  restrained 
by  sumptuary  regulations. 

Democracy,  when  it  is  materialistic  in  spirit,  stimulates  competi- 
tion along  the  line  of  fashion. 


FASHION  109 

Conformity  to  the  fashionable  style  is  more  prompt  and  general 
than  formerly,  and  the  changes  of  fashion  are  more  frequent. 

The  growth  of  intelligence  causes  the  desire  for  self -individualiza- 
tion to  seek  satisfaction  in  other  ways  than  fashion. 

EXERCISES 

I.  Trace  in  detail  the  route  by  which  a  Parisian  style  reaches 
your  neighbors.  I 

a.   Why  do  all  fashions  tend  to  the  extreme?  ^ 

3.  Who  are  more  responsible  for  fashion  absurdities  —  the 
women  who  wear  them  or  the  men  who  are  pleased  by  them  ? 

4.  Why  is  it  that  among  the  animals  it  is  the  male  that  exhibits 
the  iridescent  plumage,  comb,  wattles,  antlers,  ruff,  crest,  or  peacock 
tail,  while  among  us  it  is  the  female  that  displays  the  gorgeous 
feathers? 

5.  Show  that  the  fashions,  far  from  refining  taste,  actually 
debase  it. 

6.  Why  is  rivalry  in  consumption  less  pronounced  among 
farmers  than  among  people  of  corresponding  means  in  the  city  ? 

7.  Is  a  religious  leader  to  be  commended  for  requiring  his  fol- 
lowers to  renounce  the  extravagances  of  fashion  and  to  dress  simply  ? 

8.  Show  that  the  imitating  of  superiors  instead  of  ancestors  in 
point  of  costume  tends  to  the  equalizing  of  social  classes. 


CHAPTER   VII 


THE   NATURE   OF   CONVENTIONALITY 


Convention- 
ality reaches 
to  the  very 
framework 
of  our  lives 


By  "conventionality"  is  meant  a  psychic  plane  resulting 
from  the  deliberate,  non-competitive,  non-rational  imitation 
of  contemporaries.  The  qualifying  terms  "deliberate," 
"non-competitive,"  "non-rational,"  "of  contemporaries," 
differentiate  it  respectively  from  the  psychic  planes  laid 
by  mob  mind,  fashion,  rational  imitation,  and  custom. 

Conventionality  imitation  is  far  more  radical,  essential, 
and  controlling  in  our  lives  than  mob  mind  or  fashion.  It 
is  not  a  passing  flare-up  like  mob  mind.  It  does  not  play 
over  the  mere  surface  of  life  like  fashion.  Often  it  sup- 
plies the  governing  beliefs,  world-views,  and  ideals  which 
determine  our  attitude  toward  the  world  and  toward  our 
fellow-man.  We  flatter  ourselves  that  these  are  a  faithful 
expression  of  our  truest  individuality,  an  outgrowth  from 
our  inmost  selves;  but  this  is  nearly  always  an  illusion. 
Says  James :^  "As  a  matter  of  fact  we  find  ourselves 
believing,  we  hardly  know  how  or  why.  Mr.  Balfour  gives 
the  name  of  'authority'  to  all  those  influences,  born  of 
the  intellectual  climate,  that  make  hypotheses  possible  or 
impossible  for  us,  alive  or  dead.  Here  in  this  room,  we 
all  of  us  believe  in  molecules  and  the  conservation  of  en- 
ergy, in  democracy  and  necessary  progress,  in  Protes- 
tant Christianity  and  the  beauty  of  fighting  for  'the  doc- 

1  "The  Will  to  Believe,"  9. 
no 


THE   NATURE   OF   CONVENTIONALITY  in 

trine  of  the  immortal  Monroe,'  all  for  no  reasons  worthy 
of  the  name.  We  see  into  these  matters  with  no  more 
inner  clearness,  and  probably  with  much  less,  than  any 
disbeliever  in  them  might  possess.  His  unconventionality 
would  probably  have  some  grounds  to  show  for  its  conclu- 
sions ;  but  for  us,  not  insight,  but  the  prestige  of  the  opin- 
ions, is  what  makes  the  spark  shoot  from  them  and  light 
up  our  sleeping  magazines  of  faith.  Our  reason  is  quite 
satisfied,  in  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  cases  out  of 
every  thousand  of  us,  if  it  can  find  a  few  arguments  that 
will  do  to  recite  in  case  our  credulity  is  criticised  by  some 
one  else.  Our  faith  is  some  one  else's  faith,  and  in  the 
greatest  matters  this  is  most  the  case." 

It  is  not  easy  for  us  to  realize  how  nearly  to  the  very  imitation 
core  of  our  lives  conventionality  sends  its  influence.     To  burnishes 

many  of  the 

drive  home  the  truth,  let  us  dissect  a  number  of  deep-seated   postulates  of 
beliefs  that,  despite  their  air  of  validity,  can  be  shown  to  be  °^^  thinking 
of  illegitimate  origin,  and  —  for  most  people  —  of  purely 
conventional  acceptance. 

That  Manual  Labor  is  Degrading.  —  This,  though 
rarely  avowed,  is  widely  acted  upon.  Says  Miss  Addams :  ^ 
"To  get  away  from  menial  work,  to  do  obviously  little 
with  one's  hands,  is  still  the  desirable  status.  This  may 
readily  be  seen  all  along  the  line.  A  working-man's 
family  will  make  every  effort  and  sacrifice  that  the  bright- 
est daughter  be  sent  to  the  high  school  and  through  the  j 
normal  school,  quite  as  much  because  a  teacher  in  the 
family  raises  the  general  social  standing  and  sense  of 
family  consequence,  as  that  the  returns  are  superior  to 
factory  or  even  office  work.  '  Teacher '  in  the  vocabulary 
of  many  children  is  a  synonym  for  women-folk  gentry, 

'  "Democracy  and  Social  Ethics,"  195-196.  ij 


112 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


Laborers 
accept  the 
upper-class 
stigma  on 
manual 
labor 


and  the  name  is  indiscriminately  applied  to  women  of  a 
certain  dress  and  manner.  The  same  desire  for  social 
advancement  is  expressed  by  the  purchasing  of  a  piano, 
or  the  fact  that  the  son  is  an  office  boy,  and  not  a  factory 
hand.  The  overcrowding  of  the  professions  by  poorly 
equipped  men  arises  from  much  the  same  source,  and 
from  the  conviction  that  '  an  education '  is  wasted  if  a  boy 
goes  into  a  factory  or  shop."  In  the  Phihppines  manual 
labor  is  so  despised  that  the  ilustrados,  i.e.,  the  learned, 
"will  engage  in  industrial  occupations  that  do  not  soil  the 
hands,  but  they  are  careful  not  to  prejudice  their  social 
position  by  any  lapse,  no  matter  how  trivial  or  transient, 
toward  the  supposed  lower  vocation  of  the  manual  worker." 

Now,  it  is  natural  that  the  shamefulness  of  manual  labor 
should  become  an  article  of  faith  among  the  small  minority 
who  are  exempt  from  it.  Not  only  is  the  notion  congenial 
to  them,  but  the  more  people  they  can  persuade  to  adopt 
it,  the  more  they  are  looked  up  to  and  envied.  It  is 
strange,  however,  that  the  great  working  masses  uncriti- 
cally accept  a  notion  that  sets  them  at  odds  with  the  basis 
of  their  livelihood  and  depresses  their  social  status.  Acqui- 
escence in  it  is  like  the  man's  sawing  off  the  limb  he  is 
sitting  on.  Why,  then,  do  they  fall  in  with  the  idea? 
Simply  because  it  comes  to  them  with  the  prestige  of 
upper-class  approval. 

That  Pecuniary  Success  is  the  Only  Success.  —  Miss 
Addams  ^  observes  that  "a  certain  kindly  contempt  for 
her  abilities  which  often  puzzles  the  charity  visitor 
may  be  explained  by  the  standard  of  worldly  success 
which  the  visited  families  hold.  Success  does  not  ordi- 
narily go,  in  the  minds  of  the  poor,  with  charity  and  kind- 

*  "  Democracy  and  Social  Ethics,"  24-25. 


THE   NATURE   OF   CONVENTIONALITY  113 

heartedness,  but  rather  with  the  opposite  qualities.  The 
rich  landlord  is  he  who  collects  with  sternness,  who 
accepts  no  excuse,  and  will  have  his  own.  There  are 
moments  of  irritation  and  of  real  bitterness  against  him, 
but  there  is  still  admiration,  because  he  is  rich  and  suc- 
cessful. The  good-natured  landlord,  he  who  pities  and 
spares  his  poverty-pressed  tenants,  is  seldom  rich.  He 
often  lives  in  the  back  of  his  house,  which  he  has  owned 
for  a  long  time,  perhaps  has  inherited;  but  he  has  been 
able  to  accumulate  little.  He  commands  the  genuine 
love  and  devotion  of  many  a  poor  soul,  but  he  is  treated 
with  a  certain  lack  of  respect.  In  one  sense  he  is  a  failure. 
The  charity  visitor,  just  because  she  is  a  person  who 
concerns  herself  with  the  poor,  receives  a  certain  amount 
of  this  good-natured  and  kindly  contempt,  sometimes  real 
affection,  but  little  genuine  respect." 

Manifestly,  these  poor  people  do  not  reach  this  money  Laborers 
standard  of  success  through  their  own  experience.     Isolated  ^pplfthe 
from  other  social   classes,   the  workers  would  probably  commercial 
appraise  one  another  by  a  composite  standard,  the  chief  human^ 
elements  of  which  would  be  efficiency  and  character.     The  worth 
cash  yardstick  they  so  naively  apply  has  been  borrowed 
from  the  commercial  class  which  they  look  up  to  as  their 
superiors.     It  is  quite  natural  for  business  men  to  measure 
one  another's  pith  by  the  amount  of  money  "made," 
because  the  volume  of  profit  reaped,  under  the  rules  of  the 
game,  is  a  fairly  adequate  measure  of  business  efficiency, 
the  only  practical  measure,  in  fact.     But  outside  the  world 
of  business  their  cash  standard  is  a  gross  misfit.     Artists, 
thinkers,  writers,  scholars,  engineers,  army  and  navy  offi- 
cers, and  the  members  of  the  learned  professions  stead- 
fastly refuse  to  rate  one  another  by  it  and  resent  its  appli- 


114  SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

cation  to  themselves.  Industrial  workers,  too,  have  their 
own  means  of  testing  one  another's  prowess,  and  they  would 
never  have  taken  up  the  business  man's  criterion  but  for 
the  great  prestige  the  commercial  class  has  in  their  eyes. 
Laborers  be-  That  Ctvic  Worth  is  measured  by  Pecuniary  Success.  — 
tray  their       Again  we  draw  upon  Miss  Addams'  limnings  of  the  plain 

own  inter-  or  or 

ests  through  people  of  Chicago.  "  During  one  of  the  campaigns  a 
lour  eofy^e  ^  clcvcr  cartoonist  drew  a  poster  representing  the  successful 
alderman  in  portraiture  drinking  champagne  at  a  table 
loaded  with  pretentious  dishes  and  surrounded  by  other 
revelers.  In  contradistinction  was  his  opponent,  a  brick- 
layer, who  sat  upon  a  half-finished  wall,  eating  a  meagre 
dinner  from  a  working-man's  dinner-pail,  and  the  passerby 
was  asked  which  type  of  representative  he  preferred,  the 
presumption  being  that  at  least  in  a  working-man's  district 
the  bricklayer  would  come  out  ahead.  To  the  chagrin 
of  the  reformers,  however,  it  was  gradually  discovered  that, 
in  the  popular  mind,  a  man  who  laid  bricks  and  wore 
overalls  was  not  nearly  so  desirable  for  an  alderman  as 
the  man  who  drank  champagne  and  wore  a  diamond  in 
his  shirt-front.  The  district  wished  its  representative 
*to  stand  up  with  the  best  of  them,'  and  certainly  some 
of  the  constituents  would  have  been  ashamed  to  have 
been  represented  by  a  bricklayer."  ^  In  this  case  the 
industrial  masses  apply  an  alien  worth-standard  which 
clashes  not  only  with  their  experience  and  common  sense, 
but  with  their  interests  as  well.  To  the  comrade  who  can 
fitly  represent  and  champion  them  they  prefer  the  mis- 
representative  who  measures  up  to  the  standard  of  the 
business  man.  They  borrow  a  standard  which  makes 
all  workers  zeros  when  they  might  just  as  well  have  a 

'  "  Democracy  and  Social  Ethics,"  257-258. 


THE   NATURE   OF   CONVENTIONALITY  115 

touchstone  (say  efficiency)  which  would  make  some  of 
them  integers.  Here  we  come  on  one  secret  of  Labor's 
via  dolorosa.  In  the  struggle  of  interests  in  society  no 
class  can  get  its  dues  so  long  as  it  is  infatuated  with  the 
standards,  aims,  and  leaders  of  a  rival  class.  The  lot  of 
labor  can  hardly  be  improved  until  working-men  renounce 
"bourgeois"  thinking  and  "bourgeois"  valuations.  It 
remains  to  be  seen  whether  their  true  policy  is  to  work  out 
valuations  all  their  own  —  as  the  "class  conscious" 
laborites  declare  —  or  to  press  on  to  universally  valid 
standards  of  human  achievement  and  worth. 

That  Conservatism  is  Good  Form,  whereas  Radicalism  is  We  adopt 
Vulgar.  —  Veblen  ^  points  out  that  conservatism  "has  opinkm*^^^ 
acquired  a  certain  honorific  or  decorative  value.  It  has  touching  con- 
become  prescriptive  to  such  an  extent  that  an  adherence 
to  conservative  views  is  comprised  as  a  matter  of  course 
in  our  notions  of  respectability."  "  Conservatism,  being 
an  upper-class  characteristic,  is  decorous;  and  con- 
versely, innovation,  being  a  lower-class  phenomenon,  is 
vulgar.  The  first  and  most  unreflected  element  in  that 
instinctive  revulsion  and  reprobation  with  which  we  turn 
from  all  social  innovators  is  this  sense  of  the  essential 
vulgarity  of  the  thing.  So  that  even  in  cases  where  one 
recognizes  the  substantial  merits  of  the  case  for  which  the 
innovator  is  spokesman,  still  one  cannot  but  be  sensible 
of  the  fact  that  the  innovator  is  a  person  with  whom  it  is 
at  least  distasteful  to  be  associated,  and  from  whose  social 
contact  one  must  shrink.  Innovation  is  bad  form." 
With  most  of  us  a  blind  attachment  to  the  past  savors  of 
the  gentle,  the  scholarly,  the  superior;  whereas  a  critical 
attitude  toward  the  traditional  coupled  with  an  enthusiasm 

*  "The  Theory  of  the  Leisure  Class,"  199. 


I 


!i 


ii6 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


Certain 
standards 
of  beauty 
originate  in 
leisure-class 
snobbery 


for  what  might  he  is  felt  to  be  crude  and  low-class.  This 
perverse  conservatism  is  inexplicable  save  as  a  downward 
percolation  from  the  leisure  class  which,  by  reason  of  its 
exemption  from  those  economic  stresses  which  urge  to 
change  and  its  dependence  on  vested  interests  and  privi- 
leges for  its  exalted  position,  is  instinctively  hostile  to 
innovation. 

That  Things  are  Beautiful  in  Proportion  as  they  are 
Costly.  —  Says  Veblen:^  "While  men  may  have  set  out 
with  disapproving  an  inexpensive  manner  of  living  because 
it  indicated  inability  to  spend  much,  and  so  indicated  a 
lack  of  pecuniary  success,  they  end  by  falling  into  the  habit 
of  disapproving  cheap  things  as  being  intrinsically  dis- 
honorable or  unworthy  because  they  are  cheap."  "  So 
thoroughly  has  this  habit  of  approving  the  expensive  and 
disapproving  the  inexpensive  been  ingrained  into  our 
thinking  that  we  instinctively  insist  upon  at  least  some  meas- 
ure of  wasteful  expensiveness  in  all  our  consumption,  even 
in  the  case  of  goods  which  are  consumed  in  strict  privacy 
and  without  the  slightest  thought  of  display."  "  We  find 
things  beautiful,  as  well  as  serviceable,  somewhat  in  pro- 
portion as  they  are  costly.  With  few  and  inconsequential 
exceptions,  we  all  find  a  costly  hand-wrought  article  of 
apparel  much  preferable,  in  point  of  beauty  and  of  ser- 
viceability, to  a  less  expensive  imitation  of  it,  however 
cleverly  the  spurious  article  may  imitate  the  costly  original ; 
and  what  offends  our  sensibilities  in  the  spurious  article 
is  not  that  it  falls  short  in  form  or  color,  or,  indeed,  in 
visual  effect  in  any  way.  The  offensive  object  may  be 
so  close  an  imitation  as  to  defy  any  but  the  closest  scrutiny ; 
and  yet  so  soon  as  the  counterfeit  is  detected,  its  aesthetic 

•  "  The  Theory  of  the  Leisure  Class,"  155. 


THE   NATURE   OF   CONVENTIONALITY  117 

value,  and  its  commercial  value  as  well,  declines  precipi- 
tately."^ 

Thai  the  Consumption  of  Stimulants  or  Narcotics  by  Women  find 
Women  is  Unwomanly.  —  Veblen  '  argues  that  "  the  greater  ;'j;'^7^hkh^ 
abstinence  of  women  is  in  some  part  due  to  an  imperative  their  lords 
conventionality,  and  that  this  conventionality  is,  in  a  ^'^^pp™''^ 
general  way,  strongest  where  the  patriarchal  tradition  — 
the  tradition  that  the  woman  is  a  chattel  —  has  retained 
its  hold  in  greatest  vigor."  "  This  tradition  says  that  the 
woman,  being  a  chattel,  should  consume  only  what  is 
necessary  to  her  sustenance,  —  except  so  far  as  her  further 
consumption  contributes  to  the  comfort  or  the  good  repute 
of  her  master.  The  consumption  of  luxuries,  in  the  true 
sense,  is  a  consumption  directed  to  the  comfort  of  the  con- 
sumer himself,  and  is,  therefore,  a  mark  of  the  master. 
Any  such  consumption  by  others  can  take  place  only  on 
the  basis  of  sufferance.  In  communities  where  the  popular 
habits  of  thought  have  been  profoundly  shaped  by  the 
patriarchal  tradition,  we  may  accordingly  look  for  survivals 
of  the  tabu  on  luxuries,  at  least  to  the  extent  of  a  conven- 
tional deprecation  of  their  use  by  the  unfree  and  dependent 
class.  This  is  more  particularly  true  as  regards  certain 
luxuries,  the  use  of  which  by  the  dependent  class  would 
detract  sensibly  from  the  comfort  or  pleasure  of  their 
masters,  or  which  are  held  to  be  of  doubtful  legitimacy 
on  other  grounds.  In  the  apprehension  of  the  great  con- 
servative middle  class  of  Western  civilization  the  use  of 
these  various  stimulants  is  obnoxious  to  at  least  one,  if 
not  both,  of  these  objections;  and  it  is  a  fact  too  significant 
to  be  passed  over  that  it  is  precisely  among  these  middle 
classes  of  the  Germanic  culture,  with  their  strong  surviving 

» Ibid.,  169.  *  Ibid.,  71. 


Ii8  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

sense  of  the  patriarchal  proprieties,  that  the  women  are 
to  the  greatest  extent  subject  to  a  qualified  tabu  on  nar- 
cotics and  alcoholic  beverages." 

No  contrast  between  the  male  and  female  nervous 
systems  that  should  cause  the  one  to  benefit  by  stimulants 
and  sedatives  and  not  the  other  has  ever  been  brought  to 
light.  Among  the  American  pioneers  the  women  smoked 
as  freely  as  the  men.  The  same  is  to  be  observed  among 
people,  like  the  negroes  of  the  South,  too  spontaneous 
and  easy-going  to  accept  the  burden  of  conventionality. 
On  the  other  hand,  in  circles  relatively  emancipated  from 
patriarchal  ideas  the  like  practice  occurs.  It  is  amusing 
to  witness  the  horror  of  a  convivial  Southerner  at  the  use 
of  the  mint  julep  and  the  cigar  among  women  of  the 
"swagger  set."  The  subtleties  of  the  conventional  view 
are  edifying.  A  lady  of  the  old  school,  known  to  the  writer, 
feels  that  "it  doesn't  look  right,"  is  in  fact  "shocking," 
for  a  lady  unattended  to  enter  a  restaurant,  seat  herself 
at  a  table,  and  order  a  cocktail.  The  lady  who  drinks  the 
cocktail  a  gentleman  has  ordered  for  her  is  blameless,  as 
is  also  the  unaccompanied  lady  who  orders  a  "soft" 
drink;  but  to  order  a  cocktail  is  "unladylike"  ! 
"The spirit  "The  Spirit  of  the  age"  reigns  because  of  unconscious 
of  the  age"     imitation.     It  took  men  a  long  time  to  discover  the  atmos- 

is  a  plane  i  i       i 

established      phere,  bccause  everything  is  seen  through  that  medium. 

by  imitation  Likewise,  it  has  taken  long  to  realize  that  "the  spirit  of 
the  age"  is  a  conventionality,  because  it  is  a  spiritual 
atmosphere  in  which  all  minds  are  bathed  and  through 
which  everything  is  viewed.  Well  says  Chesterton :  ^ 
"We  see  nothing  'dogmatic'  in  the  inspiring,  but  certainly 
most  startling,  theory  of  physical  science,  that  we  should 

'"Heretics,"   302-303. 


THE   NATURE   OF   CONVENTIONALITY  119 

collect  facts  for  the  sake  of  facts,  even  though  they  seem 
as  useless  as  sticks  and  straws.  This  is  a  great  and  sug- 
gestive idea,  and  its  utility  may,  if  you  will,  be  proving 
itself,  but  its  utility  is,  in  the  abstract,  quite  as  disputable 
as  the  utility  of  that  calling  on  oracles  or  consulting  shrines 
which  is  also  said  to  prove  itself.  Thus,  because  we  are 
not  in  a  civilization  which  believes  strongly  in  oracles  or 
sacred  places,  we  see  the  full  frenzy  of  those  who  killed 
themselves  to  find  the  sepulchre  of  Christ.  But  being  in 
a  civilization  which  does  believe  in  this  dogma  of  fact  for 
fact's  sake,  we  do  not  see  the  full  frenzy  of  those  who  kill 
themselves  to  find  the  North  Pole.  I  am  not  speaking  of 
a  tenable  ultimate  utility  which  is  true  both  of  the  Crusades 
and  the  polar  explorations.  I  mean  merely  that  we  do 
see  the  superficial  and  aesthetic  singularity,  the  startling 
quality,  about  the  idea  of  men  crossing  a  continent  with 
armies  to  conquer  the  place  where  a  man  died.  But  we 
do  not  see  the  aesthetic  singularity  and  startling  quality 
of  men  dying  in  agonies  to  find  a  place  where  no  man  can 
live  —  a  place  only  interesting  because  it  is  supposed  to 
be  the  meeting  place  of  some  lines  that  do  not  exist." 

To  be  sure,  the  intellectual  elite  —  perhaps  one  per  cent 
of  one  per  cent  —  will  have  what  seem  to  them  good  and 
sufficient  grounds  for  their  manner  of  thinking.  But 
when  their  way  of  thinking  comes  to  be  "the  spirit  of  the 
age,"  these  grounds  are  quite  left  out  of  sight,  and  all  but 
the  one  in  ten  thousand  will  give  you  flimsy  excuses  rather 
than  solid  reasons  for  believing  as  he  does.  "The  thing 
is  in  the  air"  —  that  is  enough  to  make  the  vogue  of  any- 
thing that  is  congenial  to  the  current  way  of  thinking  of 
people. 


V 


I20  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


SUMMARY 


Much  of  our  thinking  proceeds  from  assumptions  which  have 
been  accepted  uncritically  because  they  are  "in  the  air." 

The  judgments  of  the  leisure  class  are  adopted  by  the  classes 
below  them  as  superior  and  authoritative. 

In  many  matters  the  leisure  class  is  competent  to  lead;  but  in 
respect  to  social  progress,  human  worth,  efficiency,  labor,  etc.,  its 
judgments  are  so  warped  by  its  peculiar  situation  that  they  are 
valueless. 

The  acceptance  of  leisure-class  views  on  such  matters  sets  the 
active  classes  at  odds  with  their  work  and  their  interests. 

Working-men  defer  unduly  to  business  men,  and  borrow  from 
them  standards  which  mislead  them  as  to  their  true  line  of  effort. 

Women,  instead  of  finding  for  themselves  the  right  adjustment 
to  life,  follow  male  opinion  as  to  what  is  proper  and  womanly. 

EXERCISES 

1.  Why  are  we  blind  to  the  extent  of  our  indebtedness  to  our  own 
society  and  our  own  time,  and  therefore  apt  to  imagine  our  individu- 
ality much  more  pronounced  than  it  actually  is? 

2.  Why  is  it  that  such  generally  admired  beauties  of  person  or 
costume  as  the  bandaged  foot,  the  high  heel,  the  wasp  waist,  the  full 
skirt,  and  the  long  train  are  such  as  incapacitate  from  all  useful  work? 
[See  Veblen,  170-172.] 

3.  What  is  the  root  of  the  conventionality  that  the  fast  horse  is 
more  beautiful  than  the  draught  horse? 

4.  What  is  the  genesis  of  the  notion  that  a  divinity  or  saint  is 
honored  by  a  periodical  abstention  from  productive  labor  on  the 
part  of  the  votary?     [See  Veblen,  309-310.] 

5.  In  what  respects  do  the  standards  of  morality  and  propriety 
current  among  women  reflect  the  male  attitude?  [See  Thomas, 
"Sex  and  Society,"   168-172.] 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  LAWS  OF  CONVENTIONALITY  IMITATION 

The  primary  generalization  it  is  safe  to  make  regard- 
ing conventionality  imitation  is :  — 

Mental  states  differ  in  ease  of  propagation. 

Motor  impulses  appear  to  diffuse  themselves  with  great  Bodily 
facility.     Instance  the  Flagellants  who,  in  1260,  appeared  ^°gad^"*^ 
in  Italy  and  thence  spread  over  Europe.     Processions  of  readily 
penitents  stripped  to  the  waist  and  scourging  themselves 
with  leather  thongs  appeared  in  the  streets  of  cities.     Their  The 
example  worked  so  contagiously  upon  the  minds  of  curious  ^^^^^  ^"'^ 
spectators  that  great  numbers  joined  the  brotherhood  of 
the   Flagellants   and    swelled    the    processions.     Women 
and  children,  always  the  most  suggestible  elements,  formed 
groups  of  their  own  for  public  self-flagellation.     In  Spires 
two  hundred  boys  under  twelve  united  for  this  purpose. 
When  at  last  the  Pope  prohibited  such  exhibitions  and 
ordered  penitents  to  scourge  themselves  only  in  private, 
the  practice,  no  longer  supported  by  the  reciprocal  sug- 
gestion of  example,  died  away  in  less  than  six  months. 

About  the  year  1370  the  dancing  mania  spread  through  The  dancing 
European  cities,  and  here  again  the  example  of  the  dancers  ""^"'^ 
worked  suggestively  until  the  bystanders,  no  longer  able 
to  resist  the  infection,  threw  aside  their  garments  and 
joined  the  wild  revel. 

About  1740  in  Welsh  revivals  religious  frenzy  in  some  The 
persons  happened  to  assume  the  form  of  jumping.     Their  J^^p^^s 

121 


of  convul- 
sions 


122  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

example  infected  onlookers,  and  finally  jumping  became 
in  that  district  the  characteristic  expression  of  religious 
ecstasy/  Similarly  the  hysterical  laughter  of  penitents  in 
the  great  Kentucky  revival  of  1799-1800  gave  to  religious 
emotion  a  specific  vent  that  worked  contagiously  until 
the  "Holy  Laugh"  became  "a  recognized  part  of  worship," 
The  Shakers,  "Holy  Rollers,"  and  "Holy  Jumpers"  of 
our  own  day  illustrate  religious  emotion  under  the  con- 
tagion of  example  following  a  particular  narrow  channel. 
Epidemics  In   1670  Certain  convulsive  seizures  appeared   in  the 

orphanage  at  Hoorn  in  Holland  and  started  among  the 
orphans  a  veritable  epidemic.  The  children  were  usually 
seized  when  they  saw  others  lying  in  the  paroxysm  or 
when  from  the  screaming  they  learned  that  another  had 
been  attacked.  On  such  an  occasion  even  those  who  took 
to  flight  would  be  seized  unless  they  happened  to  be  very 
near  the  door  of  exit.  Often  so  many  children  succumbed 
through  seeing  and  hearing  others  that  not  enough  re- 
mained on  their  feet  to  take  care  of  the  afflicted.  When, 
after  vain  resort  to  public  prayer,  some  one  had  the  good 
sense  to  isolate  the  poor  children,  by  placing  them  tem- 
porarily in  private  homes,  the  seizures  became  rarer  and 
finally  ceased.  Says  Fry:^  "In  a  French  convent  a  nun 
began  to  mew  like  a  cat;  other  nuns  began  to  mew  like- 
wise.    The  infection  spread  till  all  the  nuns  in  the  very 

'  Wesley  describes  the  exercise  as  follows :  "After  the  preaching  was  over 
any  one  who  pleased  gave  out  a  verse  of  a  hymn,  and  this  they  sung  over 
and  over  again,  with  all  their  might  and  main,  thirty  or  forty  times, 
till  some  of  them  worked  themselves  into  a  sort  of  drunkenness  or  mad- 
ness; they  were  then  violently  agitated,  and  leaped  up  and  down  in  all 
manner  of  postures  for  hours  together." — Southey,  "Life  of  Wesley," 
II,  390. 

'  "  Imitation  as  a  Factor  in  Human  Progress,"  Contemporary  Review, 
55,  p.  661. 


LAWS   OF   CONVENTIONALITY   IMITATION       123 

large  convent  began  to  mew  every  day  at  a  certain  hour, 
and  continued  mewing  for  several  hours  together,  till 
their  folly  was  checked  by  the  threat  of  castigation  from 
a  company  of  soldiers  placed  for  the  purpose  at  the  entrance 
of  the  nunnery.  ...  In  a  German  convent  a  nun  began 
to  bite  her  companions,  who  all  took  to  the  same  habit, 
which  is  said  to  have  spread  through  the  greater  part  of 
Germany,  and  even  to  have  extended  to  the  nunneries  of 
Holland  and  Rome.  Something  like  this,  though  in  a  very 
much  smaller  degree,  is  said  often  to  happen  to  girls' 
schools  in  England :  one  girl  faints  in  church,  and  several 
follow  suit;  the  whole  attention  of  the  girls  is  drawn  to 
their  interesting  comrade,  and  the  service  of  the  church  or 
the  periods  of  the  sermon  afford  no  adequate  counter- 
irritant  for  the  interest,  and  off  they  go.  In  1787  a  girl  at 
a  cotton  factory  in  Lancashire  went  into  convulsions  at  a 
mouse  put  into  her  bosom  by  another  girl,  and  the  con- 
vulsions spread  amongst  the  girls  till  the  factory  had  to  be 
shut  up." 

Marching  rhythm  is  infectious,  as  we  see  from  the  National 
swinging  pace  of  the  small  boys  following  a  company  sestures 
of  soldiers.  Indeed,  in  such  a  case,  unless  one  puts  his 
mind  to  it,  one  cannot  but  keep  step.  Yawning  is  epi- 
demic, as  many  learn  to  their  mortification.  Gestures 
spread  so  easily  that  particular  gestures  become  national. 
There  is  the  French  shrug,  the  gesticulation  of  the  Italians, 
the  lifting  and  spreading  of  the  hands,  palms  upward, 
so  characteristic  of  the  Jews.  Thanks  to  imitation, 
whittling  was  once  the  sure  mark  of  the  preoccupied 
Yankee.  Surrounded  by  smokers,  a  man  who  has  been 
obliged  to  leave  off  or  limit  his  smoking  is  impelled  to 
hold  an  unlighted  cigar  between  his  lips,  the  "dry  smoke." 


124 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


Manner  of 
speech 


Onomato- 
poeia 


At  a  given  time  very  young  people  find  irresistible  a  certain 
manner  of  walk  or  a  certain  signal,  e.g.,  waggling  the  hand 
over  the  shoulder. 

We  are  most  imitative  in  things  that  are  not  the  object 
of  conscious  attention.  We  are  unconscious  of  our  manner 
of  speech  because  we  are  usually  intent  on  the  ideas  we 
are  trying  to  convey.  This  is  why  stuttering,  stammer- 
ing, and  lisping  are  so  infectious.  A  determination  not 
to  stammer  is  no  sure  protection  against  catching  the 
trick  if  we  associate  much  with  a  stammerer.  A  friend 
confesses  that  after  a  little  association  with  one  who  lisps, 
lisping  seems  to  him  charming  and  he  cannot  avoid  it. 
The  writer  found  a  few  weeks  in  the  South  brought  him 
to  the  "Southern  drawl." 

Says  Fry :  *  "  An  Englishman  goes  to  reside  in  America 
or  in  Ireland,  and  after  a  few  years,  or  even  months, 
acquires  the  peculiarities  of  expression,  the  delicate  dif- 
ferences of  utterance,  which  separate  the  speech  of  his 
place  of  residence  from  that  of  his  place  of  birth.  In 
this  case  there  is  no  question  of  volition;  he  probably 
desires  to  retain  his  national  pronunciation;  there  is  no 
consciousness,  for  he  is  generally  surprised,  if  not  annoyed, 
at  being  told  by  his  English  friends  that  he  has  acquired 
a  new  dialect  or  brogue.  But  he  has  given  some  attention 
to  the  pronunciation  around  him,  and  by  a  purely  reflex 
action  he  comes  to  pronounce  as  he  hears."  Language 
has  some  roots  in  the  imitation  of  natural  sounds.  Says 
Fry :  ^  "  Our  first  articulate  forefathers  listened  to  the 
noises  of  the  wind  in  their  pine  woods,  ...  or  heard 


* "  Imitation  as  a  Factor  in  Human  Progress,"  Contemporary  Review, 

55>  P-  663. 
'  Ibid.,  668. 


LAWS    OF   CONVENTIONALITY   IMITATION       125 

the  rapid  flight  of  wild  birds  disturbed  in  their  haunts; 
and  by  imitation  they  produce  words  like  the  sough,  and 
the  sigh,  and  the  whir,  and  the  whiz,  of  our  own  speech. 
They  stood  by  the  .  .  .  moorland  stream,  and  splash, 
and  dash,  and  gurgle  may  recall  the  noises  they  heard." 
Such,  no  doubt,  is  the  origin  of  words  like  slap,  rap,  or 
crack;  of  thud  or  dab  or  whack;  of  purr,  buzz,  hum, 
boom,  and  quack;  of  cough  or  hiccough  or  giggle  or  chuckle. 
Primitive  man  in  his  festivities  imitated  the  animals. 
The  Kamtschadales  acknowledge  the  bears  as  their  danc- 
ing masters;  for  the  bear  dance  with  them  is  an  exact 
counterpart  of  every  attitude  and  gesture  peculiar  to  this 
animal,  through  its  various  functions.  The  emu  dance 
and  the  kangaroo  dance  of  the  Australian  are  likewise 
derived  by  imitation  of  animals. 

The  appetites  differ  in  infectiousness.  Were  it  not  The  spread 
that  the  taking  of  stimulants  is  everywhere  more  of  a  °nddn^nks 
social  act  than  the  taking  of  food,  one  might  conclude 
that  thirst  spreads  more  rapidly  than  hunger.  Certainly 
alcoholism  makes  more  rapid  headway  among  people  of 
simple  habits  who  have  migrated  to  the  city  than  gour- 
mandism.  Particular  dishes  spread,  but  they  rarely 
reach  more  than  a  provincial  or  sectional  vogue.  One 
thinks  of  the  "corn  pone"  of  the  South,  the  baked  beans 
and  mince  pie  of  New  England,  the  "haggis"  of  Scotland, 
the  risotto  of  Lombardy,  the  fagioli  at  Florence,  the 
minestra  and  vermicelli  at  Rome,  the  macaroni  at  Naples, 
the  sausages  that  take  their  name  from  Bologna.  On 
the  other  hand,  drinks  often  become  national.  There  is 
beer  in  Germany,  ale  in  England,  absinthe  in  boulevard 
France,  the  whiskey  of  Ireland,  the  brandy-and-soda 
that  marks  the  travelling  Englishman  wherever  he  goes. 


126 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


The  sex  ap- 
petite is 
tinder  to  the 
suggestive 
spark 


Feelings  are 
easily  in- 
duced by 
suggestion 
because  in- 
dependent 
of  bodily 
state 


It  is  certain  that  American  cocktails  and  mint  juleps 
will  find  favor  with  the  Filipinos  long  before  American 
batter  cakes,  though  one  could  not  be  sure  what  would 
happen  if  thirst  quenching  were  not  a  ceremony  of  soci- 
ability. 

In  any  case  the  sex  appetite  is  more  vibrant  and  sug- 
gestible than  either  of  the  others.  Truly  appalling  is 
the  swiftness  with  which  sensuality  and  lewdness  may 
infect  a  people.  In  a  mushroom  mining  camp  debauchery 
is  swifter  than  drink  in  breaking  down  steady  habits. 
This  is  why  no  society  can  afford  to  let  its  members  say 
or  publish  or  exhibit  what  they  please.  Lust  is  a  monster 
that  can  be  lulled  to  sleep  only  with  infinite  difficulty, 
whereas  a  pin  prick,  a  single  staccato  note  is  enough  to 
arouse.  The  ordered  sex  relation  is,  perhaps,  man's 
greatest  achievement  in  self-domestication.  Common 
sense  forbids  that  the  greed  of  purveyors  of  "suggestive" 
plays,  pictures,  or  literature  be  suffered  to  disturb  it. 
Moreover,  if,  as  experience  seems  to  show,  the  social  evil 
cannot  be  utterly  stamped  out  in  cities,  it  is  better  to  sweep 
it  aside  into  some  "tenderloin"  or  "levee"  than  to  let 
it  flaunt  in  the  frequented  streets.  The  public  owes 
little  thanks  to  the  mistaken  zealots  who  assault  segregated 
vice  so  energetically  as  to  drive  it  forth  into  the  tenements 
where  its  virus  finds  sound  material  to  work  on. 

The  feelings  are  more  contagious  than  the  appetites, 
probably  because  they  depend  less  upon  the  condition 
of  the  body  at  the  moment.  The  rapid  spread  of  hope 
and  terror  is  seen  in  "booms"  and  panics;  and  the 
greater  acuteness  of  the  latter  seems  to  show  that  terror 
is  the  more  catching.  Laziness  is  catching,  but  so  is 
ambition.     How  often  we  see  a  single  officer  put  life  and 


LAWS   OF   CONVENTIONALITY   IMITATION       127 

zeal  into  a  demoralized  command,  a  new  energetic  head 
communicate  a  thrill  and  a  stir  to  a  run-down  admin- 
istrative department !  In  warfare  the  great  infectious- 
ness of  courage  gives  immense  value  to  the  brave  and 
resolute  man.  The  most  striking  instances  of  this  occur 
when  Oriental  troops  are  led  by  European  officers.  Even 
with  ignorant  Tommy  Atkins  the  example  of  his  officer 
is  everything,  and  hence  a  British  officer  must  die  rather 
than  retreat  unbidden.  On  the  other  hand,  among  the 
far  better  educated  soldiers  of  America  and  Germany, 
the  example  of  the  officers  is  less  important  than  the 
individual  quality  of  the  troops. 

What  lends  hero  value  to  the  "man  of  action"  is  not  The  man  of 
his  practical  wisdom  so  much  as  his  ability  to  kindle  in  f^*'""  """f^ 

•'  be  a  moral 

Others  steadfastness  and  courage.  This  power  of  radiat-  dynamo 
ing  emotion  is  not  at  all  the  same  thing  as  the  thinker's 
power  of  communicating  his  thought.  It  is,  however, 
akin  to  the  power  of  the  prophet  or  apostle  to  inspire  in 
his  hearers  energy  of  conviction,  i.e.,  to  win  disciples. 
If  we  inquire  why  Cortez,  Ney,  Skobeloff,  Stonewall 
Jackson,  Stanley,  and  Nansen  were  accounted  so  precious, 
we  find  it  was  not  that  they  made  always  the  right  decisions, 
but  that  at  the  darkest  hour  they  could  always  infuse 
hope  and  courage  into  their  followers.  Says  Le  Bon  of 
De  Lesseps:  "He  succeeded  in  his  enterprise  owing  to 
his  immense  strength  of  will,  but  also  owing  to  the  fascina- 
tion he  exercised  on  those  surrounding  him.  To  over- 
come the  universal  opposition  he  met  with,  he  had  only 
to  show  himself.  He  would  speak  briefly,  and  in  the  face 
of  the  charm  he  exerted  his  opponents  became  his  friends. 
The  English  in  particular  strenuously  opposed  his  scheme ; 
he  had  only  to  put  in  an  appearance  in  England  to  rally 


128  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

all  suffrages.     In  later  years,  when  he  passed  Southampton 

the  bells  were  rung  on  his  passage." 
The  itch  of         Curiosity  is  extremely  infectious.     The  story  is  told  of 
curiosity  IS      ^^q  ^^^  Strolling  along  a  bustling  street  and  discussing 

communi-  o  o  o  o 

cable  the  art  of  drawing  a  crowd.     One  offered  to  bet  that  then 

and  there  he  could  in  five  minutes,  without  making  a 
motion  or  a  sound,  assemble  a  hundred  people.  His 
offer  being  taken,  he  stepped  to  the  curb  and,  shading 
his  eyes  with  his  hand,  gazed  intently  at  the  masons  work- 
ing on  a  tall  building  just  opposite.  In  three  minutes 
the  curb  was  lined  with  a  hundred  persons  straining  their 
eyes  to  see  what  the  man  was  so  interested  in.  The 
contagion  of  curiosity  among  vacuous  urban  masses  is 
brought  out  by  a  writer  in  the  Independent}  "The 
average  Londoner  is  a  pitiful  type  of  mankind.  He 
is  densely  ignorant  and  knows  little  else  than  to  say 
'God  save  the  King'  on  every  occasion  that  offers  any 
excuse  or  no  excuse  at  all.  If  a  man's  hat  blows  off  in 
the  street,  a  crowd  of  hundreds  of  people  will  collect  and 
hoot  and  laugh  at  the  unfortunate  person  until  something 
equally  as  trivial  attracts  their  attention  elsewhere.  If  a 
person  drops  any  article  in  a  public  place,  they  will  rush 
toward  the  direction  of  the  sound,  and  if  the  article  has 
broken,  they  will  stand  and  look  on  with  keen  enjoyment 
as  the  pieces  are  being  picked  up.  .  .  .  They  have 
some  of  the  same  characteristics  and  resemble  in  certain 
respects  the  poorer  class  of  negroes  in  the  United  States. 
All  that  is  necessary  to  collect  a  multitude  is  to  beat  a 
bass  drum.  Hundreds  of  people  will  speedily  assemble 
and  follow  as  long  as  the  drum  is  beating,  dispersing 
reluctantly  only  when  it  has  ceased  to  sound." 

1  Vol.  54,  p.  2930. 


/ 


LAWS   OF   CONVENTIONALITY   IMITATION       129 

The  r61e  of  curiosity  in  forming  crowds  is  emphasized  Curiosity 
by  Tarde  *  who  plainly  has  his  Parisians  in  mind.     "All  ^^^^^^\ 

cause  of 

those  throngs  of  people  which  end  in  bringing  on  revolu-  many  social 
tions  in  religion,  government,  art,  and  industry  begin  to  *^^^°^ 
collect  under  the  sway  of  this  sentiment.^  When  a  person 
is  seen  to  be  curious  about  what  once  may  have  appeared 
to  be  the  merest  trifle,  we  immediately  desire  to  know 
about  it.  This  movement  spreads  very  quickly,  and, 
through  the  effect  of  mutual  reaction,  the  intensity  of 
everybody's  desire  increases  in  proportion  to  its  spread. 
Whenever  any  novelty  whatsoever,  a  sermon,  a  political 
platform,  a  philosophic  idea,  a  commercial  article,  a 
poem,  a  novel,  a  drama,  or  an  opera,  appears  in  some 
notable  place,  i.e.,  in  a  capital  city,  it  is  only  necessary 
for  the  attention  of  ten  persons  to  become  ostensibly  fixed 
upon  this  thing  in  order  that  one  hundred,  one  thousand, 
or  ten  thousand  persons  may  quickly  take  an  interest 
in  it  and  enthuse  about  it.  At  times,  this  phenomenon 
takes  on  the  character  of  hysteria.  In  the  fifteenth 
century  when  Bohm,  the  German  piper,  began  to  preach 
his  evangel  of  fraternal  equality  and  community  of  goods, 
an  epidemical  exodus  set  in.  'The  journeymen  hastened 
from  their  workshops,  the  farm  maids  ran  with  their 
sickles  in  their  hands,'  reports  a  chronicler,  and  in  a  few 
hours  more  than  thirty  thousand  people  had  assembled 
in  a  waste  place  without  food.  Once  general  curiosity 
has  been  excited,  the  mob  is  irresistibly  predisposed  to  be 
carried  away  by  all  the  different  kinds  of  ideas  and  desires 
which  the  preacher,  the  orator,  the  dramatist,  and  the 
novelist  of  the  hour  may  seek  to  popularize." 

'  "Laws  of  Imitations,"  196-197. 
*This  statement  is  far  too  sweeping. 


I30 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


Emotions 
are  more 
nimble  than 
ideas 


Emotions  spread  more  rapidly  than  ideas  and  opinions. 
We  have  means  of  sifting  the  latter,  of  parting  chaff 
from  wheat.  Finding  a  proposition  absurd  or  self-con- 
tradictory or  contrary  to  fact  helps  us  to  reject  it,  no  matter 
how  insistent  mass  suggestion  may  be.  But  there  are  no 
such  logical  tests  we  can  apply  to  sympathies,  antipathies, 
moral  sentiments,  or  religious  emotions.  This  is  why 
feelings  run  faster  and  farther  than  philosophical,  scientific, 
political,  or  juristic  ideas.  Rarely  does  a  nation  have 
a  creed  or  a  philosophy,  but  often  the  whole  nation  shares 
the  same  love,  hatred,  ambition,  or  fanaticism.  It  is 
hard  to  get  a  national  unity  of  opinion  on  "Who  wrote 
the  Letters  of  Junius?"  "Was  Dreyfus  guilty?"  "Is 
the  negro  fit  to  vote?"  Yet  Germany  experiences  alter- 
nately anti-English  and  pro-English  feelings,  Italy  anti- 
French  and  pro-French  feelings.  Since  sentiment  is 
more  electric  than  opinion,  we  can  coin  the  maxim,  To 
unify  men  touch  the  chord  of  feeling.  This  is  why  at  the 
close  of  bitter  debates  over  points  of  doctrine  the  members 
of  a  church  convention,  in  order  to  recover  solidarity, 
join  hands  and  sing  — 


"  Blest  be  the  tie  that  binds 
Our  hearts  in  Christian  love." 


Unity  comes 
more  readily 
through  feel- 
ings than 
through 
beliefs 


In  1893  at  the  Congress  of  Religions  in  Chicago  the 
delegates  of  all  colors  and  all  lands  could  be  welded  by 
religious  and  ethical  feelings,  but  not  through  intellectual 
assent  to  any  theological  doctrine  whatsoever.  The  reason 
why  sentiment,  not  argument,  should  be  the  staple  of  the 
after-dinner  speaker  is  that  usually  a  banquet  is  at  bottom 
an  endeavor  for  harmony.  The  more  heterogeneous 
his  audience,  the  more  the  orator  must  rely  on  feelings 


LAWS   OF   CONVENTIONALITY   BlITATION       131 

rather  than  arguments  to  win  them  over.  The  man 
accustomed  to  address  members  of  his  special  group  — 
bankers,  coal-miners,  cotton  growers  —  tries  to  bring 
them  into  line  by  reasoning;  but  the  propagandist  who 
labors  with  masses  having  few  beliefs  in  common  develops 
a  fiery,  emotional  style  of  oratory  because  he  can  unite 
his  hearers  only  by  means  of  feeling.  If  the  labor  agitator 
of  to-day  utters  more  claptrap  than  the  leaders  of  the 
earlier  agitation,  it  is  not  because  he  is  less  sensible,  but 
because,  thanks  to  immigration,  the  element  he  is  trying 
to  unite  is  far  less  homogeneous  now  than  it  was  sixty 
years  ago. 

Admiration  for  a  type  of  character  is  more  communi-  An  ideal  is 
cable  than  a  theological  dogma,  and  hence  the  successful  f.  .^"^"^  ^^' 

o  o         7  ligious  nu- 

apostle  preaches  "Christ  and  Him  crucified."  The  cieusthana 
burden  of  the  revivalist's  preaching  is  not  "Believe  and  °^™^ 
thou  shalt  be  saved,"  but  "Come  to  Jesus."  Creed  is 
losing  its  power  to  unite  people  into  churches,  but  the 
growth  of  young  people's  societies  formed  on  the  basis 
of  a  common  love  of  and  loyalty  to  Jesus  fills  the  world 
with  amazement.  We  may  think  out  our  opinions,  but 
our  personal  ideals  are  mostly  borrowed,  often  long  before 
the  intellect  has  become  active.^ 

*  The  overwhelming  majority  of  people,  bad  as  well  as  good,  respond 
to  some  ideal  or  other.  Chesterton  is  not  far  wrong  when  he  says: 
"Every  man  is  idealistic;  only  it  so  often  happens  that  he  has  the  wrong 
ideal.  Every  man  is  incurably  sentimental;  but,  unfortunately,  it  is  so 
often  a  false  sentiment.  When  we  talk,  for  instance,  of  some  unscrupu- 
lous commercial  figure,  and  say  that  he  would  do  anything  for  money, 
...  we  slander  him  very  much.  He  would  not  do  anything  for 
money.  He  would  do  some  things  for  money;  he  would  sell  his  soul 
for  money,  for  instance;  and,  as  Mirabeau  humorously  said,  he  would 
be  quite  wise  'to  take  money  for  muck.'  He  would  oppress  humanity 
for  money;    but  then  it  happens  that  humanity  and  the  soul  are  not 


132 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


Imaginary 
characters 
radiate 
moral  con- 
tagion 


The  respon- 
sibility of 
the  Artist 
exceeds  that 
of  the 
Thinker 


Says  Fry:*  "The  anxiety  of  Don  Quixote,  under  all 
the  strange  circumstances  of  his  strange  career,  to  act 
in  exact  imitation  of  the  heroes  of  his  heart,  under  the 
most  similar  circumstances  in  their  careers,  is  one  of  the 
strokes  of  nature  in  the  immortal  work  of  Cervantes.  .  .  . 
How  often  the  youthful  culprit  has  been  led  to  the  com- 
mission of  crime  by  the  reading  of  some  novel  or  story, 
in  which  Dick  Turpin,  .  .  .  has  been  depicted  in  a  way 
which  has  fired  his  imagination,  and  produced  a  strong 
desire  to  emulate  his  deeds  of  violence  or  of  robbery. 
Surely  the  moral  responsibility  of  the  novelist  is  not  a 
light  one." 

"Nothing  perhaps  more  impresses  the  mind  with  the 
solidarity  of  the  human  race  than  the  thought  of  the 
enduring  influence,  through  all  succeeding  generations, 
of  the  great  men  of  old,  of  the  love  that  is  wakened  anew 
in  each  wave  of  human  life  for  the  mighty  creations  of 
the  mighty  masters  of  song  and  of  romance,  and  of  the 
force  of  imitation  which  goes  with  and  is  intensified  by 
this  love.  Imitation,  said  Sir  John  Eliot,  is  'the  moral 
mistress  of  our  lives.'" 

The  masters  of  literature  by  inventing  and  portraying 
to  the  world  imaginary  characters  produce  through  imita- 
tion very  noticeable  currents  in  moral  history.  Julie, 
Werther,  Manfred,  Rochester,  Jane  Eyre,  Tom  Brown, 
etc.,  have  been  the  pattern  of  tens  of  thousands.     Since 

things  that  he  believes  in;  they  are  not  his  ideals.  But  he  has  his  own 
dim  and  delicate  ideals;  and  he  would  not  violate  these  for  money.  He 
would  not  drink  out  of  the  soup  tureen,  for  money.  He  would  not  wear 
his  coat  tails  in  front,  for  money.  He  would  not  spread  a  report  that  he 
had  softening  of  the  brain,  for  money."  —  "Heretics,"  250-251. 

*  "  Imitation  as  a  Factor  in  Human  Progress,"  Contemporary  Review, 
55.  P-  674. 


LAWS   OF   CONVENTIONALITY   IMITATION       133 

this  is  so  the  disseminator  of  wrong  ideals  is  altogether 
more  dangerous  to  society  than  the  disseminator  of  wrong 
opinions.  Investigators  and  thinkers,  working  in  the 
sphere  of  opinion,  may  safely  be  left  free  to  speak  and 
print,  because  their  errors  will  spread  slowly  and  will 
likely  be  overtaken  by  the  truth  before  they  get  very  far. 
Moreover,  opinion  does  not  shape  conduct  so  much  as  is 
generally  supposed.  But  artists,  working  in  the  sphere 
of  personal  ideals,  may  not  be  left  entirely  uncensored, 
seeing  that  any  poison  they  emit  circulates  so  rapidly. 

The  men  society  allows  to  succeed  and  to  be  honored  The  men 
are  taken  as  models  by  the  rising  generation.     Few  of  the  ^°"°^^*^  ^""f 

■^  *-''-'  the  men  who 

young  compare  personal  ideals  and  then  choose  the  one  win  be  imi- 
which  squares  with  some  philosophy  of  life.  Most  of  them  *^*^ 
mould  themselves  upon  the  type  that  is  for  the  moment 
prominent  and  admired.  Here  is  where  society  receives 
its  just  punishment  in  case  it  allows  bad  men  to  float  to  the 
top  in  business,  finance,  or  politics.  Being  imitated  by 
the  young,  they  spread  their  virus  throughout  the  social 
body.  Not  the  crook  in  the  alley  is  the  greater  menace, 
but  the  crook  in  office,  in  the  place  of  trust,  the  crook  who 
rides  at  the  head  of  the  procession,  hands  out  the  diplomas 
to  the  high-school  graduates,  heads  the  state  delegation  or 
delivers  the  Fourth  of  July  oration. 

Probably  a  simple  idea,  e.g.^  that  Friday  is  unlucky,  or  Personal 
a  simple  feeling,  e.g.^  dislike  of  the  negro,  diffuses  itself  less  '^^^"^  ^'"^^ 
readily  than  a  complex  thing  like  a  personal  ideal.     Each  criticism 
of  us  out  of  his  own  experience  can  in  a  measure  test  and 
rightly  judge  the  simple  ideas  or  feelings  that  saturate  his 
community.     But  it  is  harder  to  criticise  and  withstand 
the  ideal  of  life  that  dominates  our  community  or  our 
time.     In  such  a  complex,  some  of  the  elements  are  sure 


II 


134  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

to  have  real  worth,  and  these  prepossess  us  in  favor  of  the 

ideal,  however  false  it  may  be. 
Sex  charm  There  is  good  ground  for  believing  that  even  so  elemental 

follows  the      ^  thing  as  sex  charm  is  the  sport  of  conventional  standards 

conventional  °  ^ 

female  type  of  beauty.  Often  the  prevailing  ideal  of  female  form  has 
been  quite  strange  to  the  natural  taste  of  men,  a  grotesque 
ideal  which  grows  up  among  the  leisure  class  and  afterwards 
vitiates  the  taste  of  the  people.     Veblen  observes :  *  — 

"  It  is  more  or  less  a  rule  that  in  communities  which  are 
at  the  stage  of  economic  development  at  which  women 
are  valued  by  the  upper  class  for  their  service,  the  ideal 
of  female  beauty  is  a  robust,  large-limbed  woman.  The 
ground  of  appreciation  is  the  physique,  while  the  confor- 
mation of  the  face  is  of  secondary  weight  only.  A  well- 
known  instance  of  this  ideal  of  the  early  predatory  culture 
is  that  of  the  maidens  of  the  Homeric  poems. 
The  pre-  "  This  ideal  suffers  a  change  in  the  succeeding  develop- 

ferred  female  j^gj^j-,  when,  in  the  conventional  scheme,  the  office  of  the 

type  IS  an  '  '  ' 

incident  of  high-class  wifc  comes  to  be  a  vicarious  leisure  simply. 
The  ideal  then  includes  the  characteristics  which  are  sup- 
posed to  result  from  or  to  go  with  a  life  of  leisure  con- 
sistently enforced.  The  ideal  accepted  under  these  cir- 
cumstances may  be  gathered  from  descriptions  of  beautiful 
women  by  poets  and  writers  of  the  chivalric  times.  In  the 
conventional  scheme  of  those  days  ladies  of  high  degree 
were  conceived  to  be  in  perpetual  tutelage,  and  to  be 
scrupulously  exempt  from  all  useful  work.  The  resulting 
chivalric  or  romantic  ideal  of  beauty  takes  cognizance 
chiefly  of  the  face,  and  dwells  on  its  delicacy,  and  on  the 
delicacy  of  the  hands  and  feet,  the  slender  figure,  and 
especially  the  slender  waist.     In  the  pictorial  representa- 

1  "The  Theory  of  the  Leisure  Class,"  146. 


pecuniary 
emulation 


LAWS   OF   CONVENTIONALITY   IMITATION       135 

tions  of  the  women  of  that  time,  and  in  modern  romantic 
imitators  of  the  chivalric  thought  and  feeling,  the  waist 
is  attenuated  to  a  degree  that  implies  extreme  debility. 
The  same  ideal  is  still  extant  among  a  considerable  portion 
of  the  population  of  modern  industrial  communities ;  but 
it  is  to  be  said  that  it  has  retained  its  hold  most  tenaciously 
in  those  modern  communities  which  are  least  advanced  in 
point  of  economic  and  civil  development,  and  which  show 
the  most  considerable  survivals  of  status  and  of  predatory 
institutions." 

Because  under  the  high  efficiency  of  modern  industry 
the  wife's  exemption  from  productive  labor  has  become 
too  general  to  serve  as  a  mark  of  the  highest  pecuniary 
grade,  "the  ideal  of  feminine  beauty  is  beginning  to 
change  back  again  from  the  infirmly  delicate,  translucent, 
and  hazardously  slender,  to  a  woman  of  the  archaic  type 
that  does  not  disown  her  hands  and  feet,  nor,  indeed,  the 
other  gross  material  facts  of  her  person.  In  the  course  of 
economic  development  the  ideal  of  beauty  among  the 
peoples  of  the  Western  culture  has  shifted  from  the  woman 
of  physical  presence  to  the  lady,  and  it  is  beginning  to 
shift  back  again  to  the  woman ;  and  all  in  obedience  to 
the  changing  conditions  of  pecuniary  emulation." 

Another    illustration    of    the    docility  with   which    sex  How  a  con- 
attraction  will  flow  in  a  conventional  channel  is  the  process  yf"f|°"3^i 
of  conjugal   selection  which  some  anthropologists  have  beauty  be- 
invoked  in  order  to  account  for  the  genesis  of  a  facial  type  '^^"^^^f^^^^- 

"  •'  ^       nalized  in  an 

in  an  isolated  population.     According  to  Ripley :  *  "It  is  isolated  pop- 
easy  to  conceive  of  artificial  selection  in  an  isolated  so-  ^^^^'^'^ 
ciety  whereby  choice  should  be  exercised  in  accordance 
with   certain    standards   of   beauty   which   had    become 

'  "  The  Races  of  Europe,"  202. 


136 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


The  radia- 
tion of  will 


Obedience 
draws 

other  imita- 
tions in  its 
wake 


generally  accepted  in  that  locality.  We  have  but  to  sup- 
pose a  fashion  (in  faces)  arising  by  chance,  or  perhaps 
suggested  by  some  casual  variation  in  a  local  hero  or  a 
prominent  family.  This  fashion  we  may  conceive  to 
crystallize  into  customary  observance,  until  finally  through 
generations  it  becomes  veritably  bred  in  the  bone  and  part 
of  the  flesh  of  an  entire  community.  A  primary  requisite 
is  isolation  —  material,  social,  political,  linguistic,  and  at 
last  ethnic."  In  this  way  is  supposed  to  have  originated 
the  peculiar  facial  type  common  to  the  Basques,  to  the 
Jews,  and  to  the  Armenians.  It  is  significant  that  the 
females  of  these  pseudo-rsices  are  truer  to  the  type  than 
the  males.  Have  the  men  by  choosing  mates  in  conformity 
to  a  certain  standard  of  beauty  at  last  externalized  and  fixed 
the  preferred  type  of  face  ? 

Volitions  are  extremely  communicable,  the  accepting 
of  another's  volition  being  obedience.  Men  differ  greatly 
in  their  power  to  command  such  acceptance.  There  are 
born  masters  who  impose  their  will  on  others  as  there  are 
born  apostles  who  impose  their  convictions.  "Mutiny 
Acts,"  says  G.  B.  Shaw,  "are  needed  only  by  officers  who 
command  without  authority.  Divine  Right  needs  no 
whip." 

Obedience  is  the  tap  root  of  other  subordinations  and 
servilities.  The  slave  or  ex-slave  apes  his  master  in  gait, 
port,  dress,  expletives,  vices.  Says  Tarde :  *  "The 
common  people  have  always  been  inclined  to  copy  kings 
and  courts  and  upper  classes  according  to  the  measure  in 
which  they  have  submitted  to  their  rule.  During  the 
years  preceding  the  French  Revolution,  Paris  no  longer 
copied  court  fashions,  and  no  longer  applauded  the  plays 

^  "Laws  of  Imitations,"  198. 


LAWS   OF   CONVENTIONALITY   IMITATION       137 

in  favor  at  Versailles,  because  the  spirit  of  insubordination 
had  already  made  rapid  strides."  Conversely,  whoever  is 
imitated  is  likely  to  acquire  power.  It  is  safe  to  say  that 
the  Roman  master  could  not  hold  down  in  abject  bond- 
age the  Greek  slave  from  whom  he  was  learning  phi- 
losophy and  literature  and  appreciation  of  the  fine  arts. 
Who  is  capable  of  being  at  once  a  disciple  of  Epictetus 
and  his  master  ?  The  Frankish  barbarians  held  the  whip 
hand  over  the  Gallo-Romans,  yet  they  drove  with  a  slack 
rein.  The  secret  was  that  they  were  spiritually  mastered 
by  these  subjects  of  theirs,  and  could  not  at  the  same  mo- 
ment imitate  them  and  oppress  them. 

Tarde  has  formulated  the  following  law  of  convention-  TheTar- 
ality  imitation.  ^^"^  ^^^ 

Imitation  proceeds  from  within  outward,  from  internals 
to  externals} 

Tarde  thus  illustrates  his  thesis:  "In  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury fashions  in  dress  came  into  France  from  Spain.  This 
was  because  Spanish  literature  had  already  been  imposed 
upon  us  [the  French]  at  the  time  of  Spain's  preeminence. 
In  the  seventeenth  century,  when  the  preponderance  of 
France  was  established,  French  literature  ruled  over  Eu- 
rope, and  subsequently  French  arts  and  French  fashions 
made  the  tour  of  the  world.  When  Italy,  overcome  and 
downtrodden  as  she  was,  invaded  us  in  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury, with  her  arts  and  fashions,  but,  first  of  all,  with  her 
marvellous  poetry,  it  was  because  the  prestige  of  her  higher 
civilization  and  of  the  Roman  Empire  that  she  had  un- 
earthed and  transfigured  had  subjugated  her  conquerors." 

On  the  same  principle,  the  ascendency  of  British  capital  Power  bring- 
and  enterprise  in  Chili  causes  British  ways  to  be  imitated 

*  See  "Laws  of  Imitations,"  199-213. 


138  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

and  creates  a  demand  for  British  goods.  The  party  or 
nation  that  has  the  power  is  likely  to  get  imitated  in  ex- 
ternals. This  is  one  reason  why  "Trade  follows  the 
flag."  The  capture  of  lucrative  markets  hinges  some- 
times on  the  outcome  of  the  struggle  of  rival  nations  for 
"influence."  Recall  the  rivalry  of  the  English  and  the 
French  to  impress  the  Egyptians,  the  struggle  between 
England  and  Russia  for  prestige  in  the  eyes  of  the  Af- 
ghans. Alexander's  conquests  would  not  have  been  fol- 
lowed by  rapid  Hellenization  of  the  East  were  it  not  that 
the  acceptance  of  the  Greek  sway  drew  naturally  in  its 
wake  the  acceptance  of  Greek  culture.  The  invasions  of 
the  Germanic  tribes  would  have  been  much  more  disas- 
trous to  civilization  had  not  their  successes  been  preceded 
by  several  centuries  of  defeat  by  Roman  arms  and  conse- 
quently of  borrowing  from  Roman  culture.  By  the  time 
they  became  masters  they  had  learned  a  deep  respect  for 
the  civilitas  that  had  so  long  held  them  at  bay.  The 
aforetime  rage  of  the  Japanese  for  European  dress,  lan- 
guage, schools,  manners,  and  entertainment  was  a  conse- 
quence of  the  impression  of  superiority  made  upon  them 
by  European  warfare,  science,  industry,  and  adminis- 
tration. The  ascendency  of  American  arms  and  govern- 
ment in  Porto  Rico  brought  about  a  furore  of  Americani- 
zation. Says  a  writer  in  The  Outlook :  ^  — 
Spontaneous  "Three  ycars  is  a  short  time  in  which  to  work  visible 
fadonoT''  changcs  in  the  life  of  a  people,  but  that  changes  have 
Porto  Ricans  taken  placc  during  that  time  in  the  dress,  manners,  and 
since  1900  customs  of  the  Porto  Rican  people  cannot  be  questioned." 
"  Four  years  ago  Porto  Ricans  had  never  heard  of  base-ball ; 
it  is  now  becoming  the  insular  game."     "  A  member  of  the 

*  Vol.  74,  pp.  653-654,  "Porto  Rico,  1900-1903." 


LAWS   OF   CONVENTIONALITY   IMITATION       139 

Executive  Council  told  me  that,  in  his  opinion,  base-ball 
was  doing  more  to  Americanize  Porto  Rico  than  express 
conciliation  or  legislative  acts  passed  to  that  end. 

"  Altered  styles  of  dress,  chiefly  among  the  better  classes, 
are  noticeable.  I  well  remember,  three  years  ago,  sitting 
in  the  plazas,  ...  on  the  Thursday  and  Sunday  evenings 
when  the  band  played.  Up  and  down  by  twos  .  .  .  paced 
the  girls  and  women  of  the  city ;  all  classes,  poor  and  rich, 
democratically  assembled  together.  Some  were  bare- 
headed, with  flowers  in  their  loosely  done  black  hair; 
some  wore  mantillas;  all  of  them  had  their  faces  pow- 
dered to  a  pasty  whiteness.  Whatever  charm  their  per- 
sonal appearance  created  was  of  a  'sweet  disorder'  in  the 
dress ;  a  candid  person  would  have  called  them  a  dowdy 
lot.  Now,  in  the  same  familiar  places,  less  than  three 
years  later,  American  and  Parisian  dressmaking  is  writ 
large  over  the  same  weekly  parades.  One  scarcely  ever 
sees  a  mantilla  on  these  occasions;  some  of  the  women 
wear  hats  precisely  like  contemporary  head-gear  in  New 
York.  The  passing  of  the  mantilla  is  a  misfortune ;  the 
hats  are  much  less  appropriate  and  becoming.  But  with 
the  mantilla  the  unsightly  powdering  custom  has  nearly 
disappeared.  .  .  .  The  naturally  good  complexions  of 
the  Porto  Rican  women  glow  now  with  a  healthier  color 
beneath  a  neat  and  well-ordered  coiffure.  The  women 
are  visibly  better  groomed.  The  band  plays  Sousa's 
marches,  'Mr.  Dooley,'  or  airs  from  'The  Country  Girl,' 
instead  of  the  mournful  minor  music  of  the  Danzas.  The 
people  laugh  and  talk  as  they  walk;  they  are  out  to  see 
as  well  as  to  be  seen ;  young  men  walk  with  the  women. 

"  Dress  has  changed ;  manners  and  customs  keep  pace. 
At  a  ball  given  in  honor  of  Admiral  Higginson  recently, 


I40 


SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 


Nothing  suc- 
ceeds like 
success 


time-honored  Spanish  social  conventions  were  abandoned, 
as  they  have  been  since  on  similar  occasions.  Dances 
vi^ere  divided ;  young  senoritas,  after  the  Northern  fashion, 
sat  out  dances  or  intermissions  in  the  foyer  or  boxes  of  the 
adjoining  theatre  with  their  partners  —  a  performance 
bringing  social  ostracism  or  engagements  under  the  old 
standard.  This  is  merely  an  instance  —  there  are  many 
others  indicating  what  to  us  seems  a  more  rational  and 
wholesome  association  between  men  and  women." 

In  the  struggles  of  interfused  peoples  that  determine 
which  shall  assimilate  the  other,  the  victory  is  apt  to  go  to 
the  element  that  in  some  way  demonstrates  superiority. 
Recall  the  role  of  military  success  and  political  domina- 
tion in  deciding  the  rivalries  of  Americans  and  French  in 
New  Orleans,  of  Americans  and  Spanish  in  California,  of 
English  and  French  in  Canada.  There  is  a  great  unlike- 
ness  in  the  response  of  our  aliens  to  their  American  en- 
vironment. Immigrants  from  a  big  and  powerful  people, 
like  the  English  or  the  Chinese,  Americanize  less  rapidly 
than  representatives  of  the  smaller  peoples,  like  the  Nor- 
wegians or  Danes.  Those  that  have  no  share  and  no 
pride  in  the  state  they  come  from  —  Irish,  Russian  Jews, 
Ruthenians,  Slovaks,  Poles  —  offer  the  least  resistance 
of  all.  On  the  whole,  those  who  come  now  Americanize 
much  more  readily  than  did  the  non-English  immigrants 
of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries.  Not  only 
do  they  come  from  lesser  peoples  and  from  humbler  social 
strata,  but,  thanks  to  the  great  role  the  United  States  plays 
in  the  world,  the  American  culture  meets  them  with  far 
more  prestige  than  it  had  then.  Although  we  have  ever 
greater  masses  to  assimilate,  let  us  comfort  ourselves  with 
the  fact  that  the  vortical  suction  of  our  civilization  is 
stronger  now  than  ever  before. 


LAWS   OF   CONVENTIONALITY   IMITATION       141 

When  different  religions  are  in  contact,  they  are  likely  why  exter- 
to  borrow  dogmas  from  one  another  before  they  borrow  "^^^5' 

°  •'  archaic 

rites  from  one  another.  Similarly,  a  system  of  law  will 
borrow  legal  principles  from  another  system  before  it 
borrows  legal  procedure.  This  is  why  externals  —  rites, 
ceremonies,  organization  —  are  apt  to  be  more  archaic 
than  are  the  dogmas,  principles,  or  functions  they  serve. 
This  is  why  so  often  the  shell  or  husk  remains  intact 
although  the  substance,  the  content,  has  been  entirely 
changed.^ 

Think  how  legal  fictions  permit  the  spirit  of  the  legal  The  form 
system  to  change  without  disturbing  the  form,  how  inter-  Jf^^"''^^|^' 

JO  G  J  the  spirit  IS 

pretation  alters  the  spirit  of  the  written  constitution,  how  adaptable 
primitive    religious   rites   and    symbols   remain,  but    are 
adapted  to  the  age  by  progressive  refinement  in  the  mode 

*  On  the  other  hand,  when  a  religion  is  forced  upon  a  people  below 
its  cultural  level,  the  order  of  borrowing  is  just  the  reverse,  and  it  is  the 
inner  features  that  will  be  archaic.  Thus  Goldziher  states  that  —  "In 
different  parts  of  the  Islamic  world  paganism,  with  uncultivated  tribes, 
in  its  more  or  less  original  forms,  has  outlasted  the  ruling  influence  of 
Islam,  although  that  was  established  centuries  ago."  "The  Ingush  are 
Muhammadans  in  name;  but,  as  with  most  peoples  inhabiting  moun- 
tains, their  ancient  paganism  has  conserved  itself  under  their  exterior 
Islam."  "The  worship  of  the  idol  Gushmile  is  almost  universal  among 
them.  The  Muhammadan  Galgai  (in  the  Caucasus)  pray  only  by  night 
in  front  of  quadrangular  stone  columns  of  the  height  of  a  man,  erected 
on  hills  and  in  cemeteries.  Remarkable  is  the  worship  of  skeletons  in 
an  ossuary  near  Nasran.  The  skeletons  are  said  to  come  from  their 
ancestors  and  to  have  begun  to  decay  only  since  the  arrival  of  the  Rus- 
sians. These  objects  of  worship  are  covered  with  green  shawls  from 
Mekka.  This  green  shawl  from  Mekka,  with  which  the  objects  and  forms 
of  the  old  traditional  worship  are  covered,  interprets  very  fittingly  the 
ethno-psychological  process  involved  in  the  Islamification  of  such  popu- 
lations. Green  is  the  Prophet's  color.  Under  the  'green  shawl'  the  old 
national  religious '  ^daf  continue  to  live.' "  —  Congress  of  Arts  and  Science, 
II,  511,  512. 


142  SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

of  interpreting  them.  In  England  we  see  democracy 
coming  in  without,  however,  displacing  the  forms  of 
monarchy,  just  as,  in  Rome,  imperialism  crept  in  under 
the  venerable  republican  forms.  Our  pagan  ancestors, 
when  they  launched  a  ship,  bound  a  captive  to  the  rollers 
to  propitiate  the  god  of  the  sea.  The  bottle  of  wine  broken 
on  the  ship's  prow  to-day  is  our  way  of  "reddening  the 
keel"  of  the  vessel  to  be  launched  and  insuring  her  good 
luck.  The  old  form  is  kept,  but  what  a  change  in  the 
spirit !  In  the  distant  past  youths  and  maidens  celebrated 
the  coming  of  the  season  of  love  with  licentious  dancing 
about  a  symbolic  pole.  Little  children  now  caper  inno- 
cently about  the  May-pole,  but  the  sense  of  the  original 
meaning  of  the  thing  is  utterly  lost.  Anthropologists  bid 
us  recognize  in  the  Lord's  Supper  the  ancient  rite,  common 
to  many  primitive  religions,  of  "eating  the  god."  The 
sacrament  may  have  had  such  a  genesis,  but  it  is  certain 
that  the  theory  of  the  rite,  the  significance  of  the  symbolic 
act,  has  changed  many  times  since  the  days  of  totemism. 
It  is  the  Since  the  replacement  of  the  inner  element,  by  borrow- 

exteriorof  j^^g  ^j.  ^y  development,  goes  on  more  rapidly  than  the  re- 
that  abounds  placement  of  the  outer  element,  we  come  upon  numerous 
m  fossi  "survivals,"  all  of  them  in  ways  of  doing,  rather  than  in 

ways  of  thinking  and  feeling.  Double-dyed  conservative 
that  he  is,  man  has  always  felt  himself  safe,  provided  only 
the  aspect  of  time-hallowed  ancestral  things  was  duly 
preserved.  This  is  why  ceremonial  is  "the  museum  of 
history."  When  the  "ordeal  of  battle"  was  the  ultimate 
method  of  ascertaining  the  Divine  Will,  it  was  fitting  that 
just  before  the  coronation  of  an  English  sovereign  an  armed 
champion  should  sound  his  trumpet  and  offer  to  fight  with 
any  one  who  disputed  the  right  of  the  claimant  to  the 


LAWS   OF  CONVENTIONALITY  IMITATION       143  di 

throne.  Yet  the  armor-clad  horseman  continued  to 
appear  in  coronations  down  into  the  nineteenth  century,  | 

when  men  had  completely  forgotten  that  the  duel  was  | 

once  an  appeal  to  the  judgment  of  Heaven.  Feudalism  is 
defunct,  but  its  titles  —  Monsieur,  Duke,  Lord,  Count, 
etc.  —  survive.  Norse  mythology  is  dead,  but  Yule-tide 
and  Easter,  rebaptized  as  Christian  festivals,  live  on.  The 
original  occasion  and  significance  of  Thanksgiving  Day 
has  passed  away;  the  festival  is  now  little  more  than  an 
excuse  for  family  reunions,  overrepletion,  and  inter- 
collegiate football.  No  doubt  it  will  experience  many 
shiftings  of  significance  in  the  future,  but  it  will  survive 
them  all  and  die  out  only  when  the  American  people  die 
out.  Kingless  though  we  are,  the  mace,  that  symbol  of 
the  Royal  Presence,  before  which  as  before  the  King 
himself  all  unseemly  brawling  should  cease,  is  still  carried 
down  the  aisle  of  Congress  when  the  members  forget  their 
dignity.  That  relic  of  pagan  days,  Hallowe'en,  from  the 
serious  concern  of  men  has  become  the  glee  time  of  prank- 
ish children,  and  in  the  "  Eeny-meeny-miny-mo "  of  the 
playground  lives  on  some  incantation  that  once  made 
spirits  obey  and  men  tremble. 

Other  evidence  of  his  principle  is  produced  by  Tarde  Reverential 
when  he  says:*    "Do  we  ever  see  one  class  which  is  in  I'^'ta^V"""* 

•'  superiors 

contact  with,  but  which  has  never,  hypothetically,  been  precedes 
subject  to  the  control  of,  another  determine  to  copy  its  i^mTtaUon^^ 
accent,  its  dress,  its  furniture,  and  its  buildings,  and  end 
by  embracing  its  principles  and  beliefs?  This  would 
invert  the  universal  and  necessary  order  of  things.  The 
strongest  proof,  indeed,  that  imitation  spreads  from  within 
to  without  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  in  the  relations 
^  "  Laws  of  Imitations,"  201. 


144  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

between  different  classes,  envy  never  precedes  obedience 
and  trust,  but  is  always,  on  the  contrary,  the  sign  and  the 
result  of  a  previous  state  of  obedience  and  trust.  Blind 
and  docile  devotion  to  the  Roman  patricians,  to  the  Athe- 
nian eupatrides,  or  to  the  French  nobility  of  the  old  regime 
preceded  the  envy,  i.e.,  the  desire  to  imitate  them  exter- 
nally, which  they  came  to  inspire.  Envy  is  the  symptom 
of  a  social  transformation  which,  in  bringing  classes 
together  and  in  lessening  the  inequality  of  their  resources, 
renders  possible  not  only  the  transmission,  as  before,  of 
their  thoughts  and  aims,  not  only  patriotic  or  religious 
communion  and  participation  in  the  same  worship,  but 
the  radiation  of  their  luxury  and  well-being  as  well." 
The  arts  It  is  a  coroUary  of  the  principle  we  are  considering  that 

cannot  ex-      ^^^  imitation  of  ideas  precedes  the  imitation  of  the  arts  that 

pand  beyond  j  r  j 

the  sphere  express  them.  Thus  Romanticism  in  thought  preceded 
or  ideak'''^^  Romanticism  in  literature ;  people  had  been  prepared  for 
they  express  Scott  and  Dumas  and  Jean  Paul  and  Victor  Hugo  by  the 
diffusion  of  the  ideas  of  Jacobi  and  Burke  and  De  Maistre. 
So  the  revival  of  Greek  learning  antedated  the  triumph 
of  the  art  of  Michael  Angelo.  Darwin  and  Moleschott 
made  minds  ready  to  appreciate  the  literary  product  of  the 
Naturalists  and  Realists.  It  is  not  known  that  classic  art 
was  adopted  by  any  people  unacquainted  with  the  Greek 
myths,  or  that  Gothic  architecture  had  a  sphere  of  accept- 
ance wider  than  that  of  the  Christian  mysticism  it  so  fully 
expresses.  Hardly  would  the  painting  of  Millet  or  Israels 
win  so  many  disciples  among  artists  were  it  not  that  social 
democracy  is  in  the  air.  Similarly  the  ideas  under  the 
phrase  "bankruptcy  of  science"  had  to  gain  circulation 
before  there  could  spring  up  that  school  of  writers  known 
as  Symbolists. 


LAWS   OF   CONVENTIONALITY   IMITATION      145 

This  law  explains  why  beliefs  fuse  sooner  than  languages,  The  funda- 
manners,  or  customs.     The  Delphic  Oracle  attained  au-  ^Ms^prea'd 
thority  in  all  Greece  long  before  the  assimilation  brought  the  farthest 
about  by  the  Olympic  Games.     Europe  had  a  common 
faith  long  before  the  great  central  monarchies  began  to 
assimilate  the  peoples.     If  language  spread  as  rapidly  as 
religion,  there  would  be  as  many  religions  as  languages, 
but  the  fact  is  that  the  struggle  for  existence  and  the  elimi- 
nation of  inferiors  or  variants  is  so  much  greater  among 
religions,  in  consequence  of  their  invasive  power,  that 
there  are  fewer  of  them. 


SUMMARY 

Movements  and  actions  readily  infect  the  beholder. 

Matters  like  gesture  and  accent  which  are  not  ordinarily  the 
object  of  conscious  attention,  quickly  conform  to  example. 

The  susceptibility  of  the  sex  appetite  to  suggestion  justifies  a 
certain  social  censorship  over  books,  plays,  pictures,  etc. 

Feelings  are  more  readily  communicated  by  suggestion  than 
appetites  or  ideas. 

Personal  ideals  circulate  more  quickly  than  beliefs.  For  this 
reason  Art  needs  the  censor  more  than  Science  or  Philosophy. 

Sex  desire  will  follow  the  conventional  type  of  the  opposite  sex. 

Impression  and  fascination  inspire  a  general  readiness  to  imitate. 

The  outer  form  of  institutions  lasts,  whereas  the  spirit  and  pur- 
pose change  easily. 

EXERCISES 

1.  Why  does  your  throat  ache  after  listening  to  a  speaker  who 
forms  his  voice  badly? 

2.  Consider  the  pros  and  cons  of  talks  on  sex  hygiene  before  the 
segregated  pupils  of  the  public  schools. 

3.  Does  the  progress  in  stability  and  security  lessen  the  hero 
value  of  the  leader,  and  exalt  his  directive  capacity? 

4.  Why  is  it  that  the  masterful  teacher  who  keeps  the  big  boys 
in  order  is  imitated  by  them? 


146  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

5.  What  is  the  chief  objection  to  setting  up  in  a  public  place  the 
statue  of  a  Tweed  or  a  Quay  ? 

6.  Show  how  a  popular  ideal  like  the  Gibson  Girl  tends  to  get 
realized  in  flesh  and  blood. 

7.  Study  closely  some  raw  immigrant  family  and  see  if  the  pro- 
cess of  their  Americanization  agrees  with  Tarde's  law. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  RADIANT  POINTS  OF  CONVENTIONALITY 

Perhaps  the  most  general  clew  to  the  direction  and 
spread  of  conventionality  is  given  in  the  statement:  — 
The  social  superior  is  imitated  by  the  social  inferior.^ 

Before  illustrating  this  principle,  the  great  key  to  con- 
ventional imitation,  let  us  consider  some  of  its  limitations. 

In  the  first  place  the  influence  of  the  social  superior   Basic  in- 
may  be  withstood  in  case  it  clashes  with  fundamental  needs  may 
needs  or  instincts.     For  instance,  in  the  upper  class  from  resist  imi- 
time  to  time  it  has  been  held  "bad  form"  for  ladies  to  superior 
nurse   their   children;    but   this   convention   violates   so 
deep-rooted  an  instinct  that  it  has  never  come  into  general 
good  repute  and  probably  never  will.     In  his  code  of 
lady  service  or  of  duelling  the  social  superior  has  at  times 
gone  to  such  absurd  lengths  that  the  common  sense  of  the 
inferior  has  revolted.     In  the  England  of  the  seventeenth 
century  it  was  not  the  profligacy  of  the  upper  class,  but 
the  Puritanism  of  the  middle  class,  that  finally  gave  the 
key-note  to  English  morals.     We  see  the  same  thing  in  Working- 
the  refusal  of  wage-earners  to  accept  the  bourgeois  aversion  ™cept°th  ° 
to  early  marriage.     Miss  Addams  ^  points  out  that  the   bourgeois 
charity  visitor,  as  she  comes  to  know  the  situation  of  the   ^^^.j^ 
poor,  "discovers  how  incorrigibly  bourgeois  her  standards  riage 

*  See  Tarde,  "Laws  of  Imitations,"  213-221. 
^"Democracy  and  Social  Ethics,"  38,  39. 

147 


aversion  to 
mar- 


148 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


Nor  the 
bourgeois 
doctrine  of 
the  rights  of 
children 


have  been,  and  it  takes  but  a  little  time  to  reach  the  con- 
clusion that  she  cannot  insist  so  strenuously  upon  the  con- 
ventions of  her  own  class  which  fail  to  fit  the  bigger,  more 
emotional,  and  freer  lives  of  working  people.  The 
charity  visitor  holds  well-grounded  views  upon  the  im- 
prudence of  early  marriages,  quite  naturally,  because  she 
comes  from  a  family  and  circle  of  professional  and  busi- 
ness people.  A  professional  man  is  scarcely  equipped  and 
started  in  his  profession  before  he  is  thirty.  A  business 
man,  if  he  is  on  the  road  to  success,  is  much  nearer  pros- 
perity at  thirty-live  than  twenty-five,  and  it  is  therefore 
wise  for  these  men  not  to  marry  in  the  twenties ;  but  this 
does  not  apply  to  the  working-man.  In  many  trades  he  is 
laid  upon  the  shelf  at  thirty-five,  and  in  nearly  all  trades 
he  receives  the  largest  wages  in  his  life  between  twenty 
and  thirty."  "  He  naturally  regards  his  children  as  his 
savings-bank;  he  expects  them  to  care  for  him  when  he 
gets  old,  and  in  some  trades  old  age  comes  very  early." 
The  writer  goes  on  to  show  why  parental  abdication,  now 
so  popular  with  the  bourgeoisie,  is  not  imitated  by  wage- 
earners.  "Parents  who  work  hard  and  anticipate  an  old 
age  when  they  can  no  longer  earn  take  care  that  their 
children  shall  expect  to  divide  their  wages  with  them 
from  the  very  first.  Such  a  parent,  when  successful,  im- 
presses the  immature,  nervous  system  of  the  child,  thus 
tyrannically  establishing  habits  of  obedience,  so  that  the 
nerves  and  will  may  not  depart  from  this  control  when  the 
child  is  older.  The  charity  visitor,  whose  family  relation 
is  lifted  quite  out  of  this,  does  not  in  the  least  understand 
the  industrial  foundation  for  this  family  tyranny. 

"  The  head  of  a  kindergarten  training  class  once  ad- 
dressed a  club  of  working  women,  and  spoke  of  the  des- 


RADIANT  POINTS   OF   CONVENTIONALITY       149 

potism  which  is  often  established  over  little  children.  She 
said  that  the  so-called  determination  to  break  a  child's 
will  many  times  arose  from  a  lust  of  dominion,  and  she 
urged  the  ideal  relationship  founded  upon  love  and  confi- 
dence. But  many  of  the  women  were  puzzled.  One  of 
them  remarked  as  she  came  out  of  the  club  room,  '  If  you 
did  not  keep  control  over  them  from  the  time  they  are 
little,  you  would  never  get  their  wages  when  they  are  grown 
up.'  Another  one  said:  'Ah,  of  course  she  [meaning  the 
speaker]  doesn't  have  to  depend  upon  her  children's 
wages.  She  can  afford  to  be  lax  with  them,  because  even 
if  they  don't  give  money  to  her,  she  can  get  along  without 
it.'  "  ^ 

Happily,   social   prestige   is   not   everything,   and   the  By  sheer 
humblest  person  may  launch  a  doctrine  or  ideal  which,  by  ^^"^  ^^^ 
reason  of  its  strength  or  fitness,  will  ultimately  find  favor  mount  in 
with  the  upper  social  layers.     Chrysippus  and  Epictetus,  J^^J^ 
though  without  social  vantage-ground,  radiated  Stoic  ideas  gravity 
to  the  very  apex  of  Roman  society.     Think  of  the  success- 
ful propagation  of  the  Gospel  by  Jews  and  slaves  and  "base 
mechanicals"  in  a  world  ripe  for  monotheism  and  a  purer 
ideal !    Luther,  George  Fox,  Howard,  Pestalozzi,  George 
Stevenson,  Garrison,  and  Lincoln  are  men  who  in  some 
way  impressed  society,  without  a  dais  to  stand  on. 

Then,  in  a  strongly  traditional  society,  the  members  of  The  lower 
a  lower  caste  will  prefer  to  imitate  their  ancestors  rather  clpy'^thS^^ 
than  ape  the  upper  caste.     This  is  the  Bauern-Stoh  so  ancestors 
often  met  with  in  Germany  and  Austria.     "Rarely,  in-  ^^^J^ 


su- 


deed,  even  among  the  most  prosperous  Bauers,  so  long  periors 
as  they  are  occupied  in  the  cultivation  of  their  land,  is 
there  any  tendency  to  ape  the  manners  or  social  customs 

*  "  Democracy  and  Social  Ethics,"  44. 


ISO 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


The  superior 
insensibly 
borrows 
from  the 
inferior 


Culture  men 
enveloped 
by  an  in- 
ferior race 
become  con- 
servative 


of  even  the  poorest  of  the  aristocracy  or  of  the  ofi&cial  or 
the  professional  classes."  * 

Again,  just  as  bodies  of  different  temperature  inter- 
change heat,  so  classes  on  different  levels  interchange  char- 
acteristics, and  to  a  certain  extent  the  superior  borrows 
from  the  inferior.  Slang  or  argot  invades  literature ;  homely 
country  phrases  flavor  city  speech;  darky  songs  and 
dances  win  the  entree  to  the  drawing-room ;  Marie  Antoin- 
ette in  her  Petit  Trianon  plays  at  peasant  life ;  Millet  in- 
troduces the  peasant  into  high  art;  the  nobility  accepts 
the  frock-coat  and  the  simple  manners  of  the  middle  class ; 
masters  become  tainted  with  the  sensuality  and  vices  of 
their  slaves ;  our  Southerners  soften  their  consonants  and 
open  their  vowels  in  unwitting  imitation  of  the  negro. 
When  one  language  drives  out  another,  it  nevertheless 
borrows  some  words  from  the  displaced  tongue.  English 
vanquishes  Spanish  in  the  Southwest,  but  accepts  such 
words  as  calabash,  cotton,  palaver,  guerilla,  alligator, 
corridor,  adobe,  patio,  arroyo,  renegade,  plaza,  etc.  From 
the  long-vanished  Indian  speech  English  took  such  words 
as  potato,  squaw,  wigwam,  moccasin,  pemmican,  hurricane, 
and  wampum. 

Whites  in  contact  with  aborigines  let  down.  Certain 
of  the  first  trans-Alleghany  settlers  became  so  Indianized 
as  to  wear  a  buckskin  dress,  marry  a  squaw,  and  let  the 
scalp-lock  grow.  Realizing  this  danger  of  let-down,  an 
isolated  white  folk  enveloped  by  savages  becomes  intensely 
conservative.  The  French  Canadians  of  to-day  are  French 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  and  their  conservatism  has,  no 
doubt,  the  same  root  that  Miss  Schreiner  ^  finds  for  Boer 
conservatism. 


*  Palmer,  "  Austro-Hungarian  Life."         ^  Cosmopolitan,  29,  pp.  601-602. 


RADIANT   POINTS   OF   CONVENTIONALITY       151 

"It  is  true  that  the  Boer  has  preserved  in  the  South  The  key  to 
African  wilds  the  ideals  and  manners  of  his '  ancestors  of  ^°^''  ^°^' 

servatism 

two  centuries  ago ;  that  in  him  the  seventeenth,  and  even 
remnants  of  the  sixteenth,  century  are  found  surviving 
as  among  few  peoples  in  Europe ;  but  if  this  survival  of 
the  past  be  taken  to  imply  .  .  .  the  immobility  of  the 
weak,  and  therefore  unadaptable,  nature,  not  having  the 
vitality  and  strength  to  change,  it  is  wholly  untrue.  Noth- 
ing so  indicates  the  dogged,  and  almost  fierce,  strength  of 
the  South  African  Boer,  as  this  unique  conservatism. 
Placed  in  a  new  environment,  removed  from  all  the  centres 
of  European  culture,  thrown  out  into  the  wilds  of  the  Afri- 
can deserts,  surrounded  by  primitive  conditions  of  life, 
and  often  by  none  but  savage  and  primitive  human  crea- 
tures, nothing  could  have  been  easier,  or  would  have 
seemed  almost  more  inevitable,  than  that  rapid  change 
should  at  once  have  set  up  in  the  South  African  Boer; 
nothing  more  difficult,  and  almost  impossible,  than  for  him 
to  maintain  that  degree  of  cultivation  and  civilization 
which  he  brought  from  Europe  and  already  possessed. 
Again  and  again,  under  like  conditions,  men  of  lofty  Euro- 
pean races  have  been  modified  wholly.  Thrown  amid 
new  and  primitive  surroundings,  when,  after  a  few  genera- 
tions of  isolation  from  European  life,  they  come  to  be 
considered  by  us,  we  find  that  whatever  of  culture  or 
knowledge  they  brought  with  them  has  vanished;  their 
religion  has  atrophied,  their  habits  of  life  are  modified, 
and  among  savage  peoples,  and  often  interblending  with 
them,  they  have  lost  all,  or  almost  all,  the  old  distinctive 
marks.  They  are  a  new  human  modification,  but  a  modi- 
fication often  lower  in  the  scale  of  life  than  the  primitive 
people  by  whom  they  were  surrounded ;  a  degenerate  and 


152  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

decayed  people.  On  the  east  and  west  coasts  of  Africa, 
in  South  America,  and  elsewhere,  again  and  again  this 
has  happened.  Europeans,  not  having  the  conserving 
strength  to  retain  what  they  possess,  have  gone  backward 
in  the  scale  of  being.  With  the  South  African  Boer  this 
has  not  been  so. 

"That  little  flag  of  seventeenth-century  civilization 
which  he  took  with  him  into  the  wilderness  two  hundred 
years  ago,  we  still  find  to-day  gallantly  flying  over  his 
head,  untorn  and  hardly  faded  after  its  two  centuries' 
sojourn  in  the  desert.  With  the  quick  instinct  of  a  power- 
ful race,  the  Boer  saw,  or  rather  felt,  his  danger.  The 
traditions,  the  faith,  the  manners,  of  his  fathers,  he  would 
hold  fast  by  these.  To  move,  to  be  modified  by  the  con- 
ditions about  him,  was  to  go  backward :  he  would  not 
move ;  he  planted  his  foot,  and  stood  still ! 

"You  say  he  still  wears  the  little  short  jacket  of  his 
great-great-grandfather's  great-grandfather?  Yes,  and 
had  he  given  it  up,  it  would  have  been  to  wear  none  at 
all !  So,  line  by  line,  his  wife  made  it,  as  his  father's 
forefather's  had  been.  You  say  he  stuck  generation  after 
generation  to  the  straight-backed  elbow-chair  and  the 
hard-backed  sofa  of  his  forefathers?  Yes,  and  had  he 
given  them  up,  it  would  have  been  to  adopt  nothing  more 
aesthetic;  it  would  have  been  to  sit  on  the  floor;  so  he 
held  solemnly  by  the  old  elbow-chair  and  the  straight- 
backed  sofa,  almost  as  a  matter  of  faith. 

"You  say  he  had  only  one  book,  and  clung  to  it  with  a 
passion  that  was  almost  idolatry  ?  Yes,  but  had  he  given 
up  that  one  book,  it  could  not  have  been  to  fill  his  library 
with  the  world's  literature ;  it  would  have  been  to  have 
no  literature  at  all !    That  one  book,  which  he  painfully 


RADIANT   POINTS    OF    CONVENTIONALITY        153 

spelled  through,  and  so  mightily  treasured,  was  his  only 
link  with  the  world's  great  stream  of  thought  and  knowl- 
edge ...  his  one  possible  inlet  to  the  higher  spiritual 
and  intellectual  life  of  the  human  race.  ...  If  the  Boer 
had  forsaken  his  Bible,  we  should  have  found  him  to-day 
a  savage,  lower  than  the  Bantus  about  him,  because 
decayed.  In  nothing  has  he  so  shown  his  strength  as  in 
clinging  to  it. 

"To  one  who  wisely  studies  the  history  of  the  African 
Boer,  nothing  is  more  pathetic  than  this  strange,  fierce 
adherence  of  his  to  the  past.  That  cry,  which  unceasingly 
for  generations  has  rung  out  from  the  Boer  woman's  elbow- 
chair,  '  My  children,  never  forget  you  are  white  men ! 
Do  always  as  you  have  seen  your  father  and  mother  do ! ' 
was  no  cry  of  a  weak  conservatism,  fearful  of  change ;  it 
was  the  embodiment  of  the  passionate  determination  of  a 
great,  little  people,  not  to  lose  the  little  it  possessed  and 
so  sink  in  the  scale  of  being.  To  laugh  at  the  conservatism 
of  the  Boer  is  to  laugh  at  the  man  who,  floating  above  a 
whirlpool,  clings  fiercely  with  one  hand  to  the  only  out- 
stretching rock  he  can  reach,  and  who  will  not  relax  his 
hold  on  it  by  one  finger  till  he  has  found  something  firmer 
to  grasp." 

The  English  settlers  in  America  felt  the  down-pull,  due  Public  edu- 
partly  to  contact  with  the  aborigines,  partly  to  the  rude  nation  as  a 

^  •'  o  '    r  J  means  of 

struggle  with  the  wilderness,^  but  they  successfully  with-  resisting 
stood  it  by  organizing  education.    Fiske  ^  speaks  of  the     o^^^-p^^^ 
"widespread   seminal    influence   of   Yale   and   Harvard, 
sending  their  graduates  into  every  town  and  village  as 
ministers,  lawyers,  and  doctors,  schoolmasters  and  editors, 

'  Eggleston,  "The  Transit  of  Civilization,"  233-236. 
^  "  Old  Virginia  and  her  Neighbors,"  II,  253. 


154  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

merchants  and  country  squires."  And  adds:  "Among 
the  founders  of  New  England  were  an  extraordinary 
number  of  clergymen  noted  for  their  learning,  such  as 
Hooker  and  Shepard,  Cotton  and  Williams,  Eliot  and  the 
Mathers;  together  with  such  cultivated  laymen  as  Win- 
throp  and  Bradford,  familiar  with  much  of  the  best  that 
was  written  in  the  world,  and  to  whom  the  pen  was  an 
easy  and  natural  instrument  for  expressing  their  thoughts. 
The  character  originally  impressed  upon  New  England 
by  such  men  was  maintained  by  the  powerful  influence  of 
the  colleges  and  schools,  so  that  there  was  always  more 
attention  devoted  to  scholarship  and  to  writing  than  in 
any  of  the  other  colonies.  Communities  of  Europeans, 
thrust  into  a  wilderness  and  severed  from  Europe  by  the 
ocean,  were  naturally  in  danger  of  losing  their  higher 
culture  and  lapsing  into  the  crudeness  of  frontier  life. 
All  the  American  colonies  were  deeply  affected  by  this 
situation.  While  there  were  many  and  great  advantages 
in  the  freedom  from  sundry  Old  World  trammels,  yet  in 
some  respects  the  influence  of  the  wilderness  was  bar- 
barizing. It  was  due  to  the  circumstances  above  men- 
tioned that  the  New  England  colonies  were  more  success- 
ful than  the  others  in  resisting  this  influence,  and  avoiding 
a  breach  of  continuity  in  the  higher  spiritual  life  of  the 
community."  ^ 

*  At  the  same  time,  stiffness  and  lack  of  flexibility  in  the  superior  race, 
blindness  to  the  relativity  of  its  own  culture  and  to  the  good  points  of 
the  inferior  race,  make  it  impotent  to  raise  the  inferior.  Says  Boutmy : 
"  The  French  were  loved  by  the  Indians,  and  found  in  them  faithful 
allies.  The  Spanish,  by  intermixing  with  the  natives  of  Mexico,  Peru, 
and  Central  America,  formed  a  race  which  by  degrees  became  initiated 
into  the  highest  European  culture.  The  Redskins,  on  the  contrary,  who 
lived  on  the  borders  of  the  United  States,  were  cantoned,  demoralized, 


RADIANT   POINTS   OF   CONVENTIONALITY       155 

The  colony  of  five  or  six  thousand  Wiirtembergers  at  Conserva- 
Tiflis,  descended  from  the  emigrants  who  left  their  coun-  ^^™  °^  ^^® 
try  because  their  prince  insisted  on  forcing  on  his  subjects  at  Tiflis 
a  new  hymn-book  which  they  considered  too  lax  in  its 
statements  of  doctrine,  have  become  encysted  in  a  con- 
servatism which  enables  them  to  resist  their  Russo- 
Oriental  environment.  Says  Bryce :  *  "Here  have  they 
dwelt  ever  since,  preserving  all  their  old  ways  and  habits, 
cherishing  their  Protestant  faith,  and  singing  out  of  their 
dear  old  hymn-book.  Rows  of  trees  run  along  the  princi- 
pal street;  breweries  and  beer-gardens  border  it,  where 
the  honest  burgher  sits  at  night  and  listens  over  his  supper 
to  a  band,  as  his  cousins  are  doing  at  the  same  hour  in 
the  suburbs  of  Stuttgart.  Tidy  little  Fraus  come  out  in 
the  evening  cool  to  the  doorsteps,  and  knit  and  chat 
among  their  fair-haired  Karls  and  Gretchens.  They  have 
their  own  schools,  far  better  than  any  which  Russian 
organization  produces;  they  are  nearly  all  Protestants, 
with  a  wholesome  Protestant  contempt  for  their  supersti- 

and  decimated.  .  .  .  While  in  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  only  some 
hundred  thousand  Indians  were  partly  licked  into  shape  and  civilized 
by  the  English,  twelve  millions  of  aborigines  were  in  the  same  time 
raised  by  Catholic  Spain  to  a  far  higher  degree  of  civilization.  The 
same  inability  to  comprehend  the  inferior  race,  to  stoop  towards  them  so 
as  to  raise  them  up  and  place  them  on  a  level  with  themselves,  is  strik- 
ingly apparent  in  all  the  lamentable  history  of  Ireland,  in  that  of  India, 
and  in  the  present  administration  of  Egypt.  The  English  have  secured 
material  benefits  to  these  populations:  order,  security,  and  riches. 
Their  authority  in  Hindustan,  for  example,  is  exercised  in  all  good  faith, 
honestly  and  justly ;  but  though  a  century  has  gone  by  they  still  hold 
among  the  mass  of  the  natives  the  position  of  an  isolated  company,  in 
that  they  have  no  adherents.  Foreigners  are  they  still,  and  a  cry  of 
deliverance  would  salute  their  departure,  even  if  they  took  with  them 
well-being  and  peace."  —  "  The  English  People,"  101-102. 
'"Transcaucasia  and  Ararat,"  150. 


156  SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

tious  Georgian  and  Armenian  neighbors.  They  speak 
nothing  but  German  among  themselves,  and  show  little 
or  no  sign  of  taking  to  Russian  ways  or  letting  themselves 
be  absorbed  by  the  populations  that  surround  them.  It 
was  very  curious  to  contrast  this  complete  persistency  of 
Teutonism  here  with  the  extraordinarily  rapid  absorption 
of  the  Germans  among  other  citizens  which  one  sees 
going  on  in  the  American  West,  Milwaukee,  e.g.  Here 
they  are  exiles  from  a  higher  civilization  planted  in  the 
midst  of  a  lower  one ;  there  they  lose  themselves  among 
a  kindred  people,  with  whose  ideals  and  political  institu- 
tions they  quickly  come  to  sympathize." 
Most  diffu-  In  general,  however,  the  current  of  imitation  runs  from 
sions  obey      suDcrior   to  inferior.     Accent,  style  of  handwriting,  ges- 

social gravity         J-  '        •'  o'    o 

tures,  salutations,  etiquette,  amusements,  and  modes  of 
The  descent  entertainment  pass  from  Americans  to  immigrants,  from 
of  wants         i^jg  i^Qyg  ^Q  ^'i-^jg  ^Qyg  jjj  school,  from  seniors  to  freshmen, 

from  the  travelled  to  the  stay-at-homes,  from  whites  to 
blacks,  from  society  women  to  debutantes,  from  Mrs. 
Colonel  to  Mrs.  Subaltern,  Gurewitsch  ^  shows  that  nearly 
all  existing  elements  of  culture  were  first  taken  up  by  an 
upper  class  and  penetrated  to  the  masses  under  the  in- 
fluence of  their  example.  Dress,  sported  by  the  leisured 
to  distinguish  them  from  the  clouted  laborers,  becomes 
clothing.  Most  cereals  began  by  furnishing  spirituous 
liquors  to  the  well-to-do.  Only  when  they  entered  the 
dietary  of  the  poorer  classes  did  their  nutritive  value 
begin  to  be  prized.  The  useful  metals  furnished  orna- 
ments to  the  rich  before  they  gave  tools  to  the  artisan. 
The  ass  and  the  horse  were  probably  domesticated  not 

*  "  Die  Entwickelung  der  menschlichen  Bediirfnisse." 


RADIANT   POINTS   OF   CONVENTIONALITY       157 

SO  much  for  burden  or  draught  purposes  as  for  the  saddle, 
and  they  were  ridden  less  for  comfort  than  for  the  digni- 
fied and  impressive  mode  of  locomotion  they  afforded. 
Butter,  milk,  cheese,  and  bread,  no  less  than  tea,  coffee, 
and  tobacco,  are  an  acquired  taste,  and  first  became 
popular  because  the  social  superiors  had  made  them 
reputable.  The  use  of  milk  spread  among  the  Hindus 
from  the  Brahmins.  In  Egypt  and  Mexico  bread  entered 
the  diet  of  the  upper  classes  while  yet  the  rabble  lived  on 
dates  and  fish. 

Gurewitsch  shows  that  even  the  artistic  and  intellectual  The  descent 
activities  that  later  became  the  learned  professions  began  °^  culture 
among  the  leisured  as  honorific  employments,  document- 
ing one's  sensibility  and  talent.  The  sciences  owe  their 
beginning  largely  to  the  love  of  displaying  intellectual 
prowess.  Philosophy  is  of  gentle  origin,  but  exact  science 
is  of  humble  ancestry,  for  it  was  peasant  brains  that  gave 
upper-class  speculations  a  practical  turn  and  transformed 
intellectual  sport  into  serious  work.  Language  owes 
much  of  its  enrichment  to  the  social  superior  seeking 
new  terms  and  words  in  order  to  avoid  the  colloquial 
speech  of  the  vulgar;  but  the  masses  would  not  thus  be 
eluded  and  by  appropriating  such  refinements  they  in- 
sured the  development  of  the  mother-tongue. 

Says  Hearn  ^  of  Japan :  "  During  the  Tokugawa  period,  The  descent 
various  diversions  or  accomplishments,  formerly  fashion-  of  manners 

and  accom- 

able  in  upper  circles  only,   became   common   property,  piishments 
Three  of  these  were  of  a  sort  indicating  a  high  degree  of 
refinement :    poetical   contests,   tea  ceremonies,   and  the 
complex  art  of  flower  arrangement.    All  were  introduced 

^"  Japan:    An  Interpretation,"  390-392. 


158  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

into  Japanese  society  long  before  the  Tokugawa  regime. 
.  .  .  But  it  was  under  the  Tokugawa  Shogunate  that 
such  amusements  and  accomplishments  became  national. 
Then  the  tea  ceremonies  were  made  a  feature  of  female 
education  throughout  the  country,"  "  It  was  in  this  period 
also  that  etiquette  was  cultivated  to  its  uttermost,  —  that 
politeness  became  diffused  throughout  all  ranks,  not 
merely  as  a  fashion,  but  as  an  art."  "  For  at  least  ten  cen- 
turies before  lyeyasu,  the  nation  had  been  disciplined  in 
politeness,  under  the  edge  of  the  sword.  But  under  the 
Tokugawa  Shogunate  politeness  became  particularly  a 
popular  characteristic,  —  a  rule  of  conduct  maintained 
by  even  the  lowest  classes  in  their  daily  relations." 
The  descent  It  is  true  that  monogamy  worked  from  below  upward, 
Ufe  ^^  °  embodying  the  anti-monopoly  protest  of  the  masses  against 
upper-class  polygamy.  But  the  position  of  the  wife  in 
the  monogamic  union  is  patterned  upon  the  rights  and 
privileges  of  the  first  or  favorite  wife  in  the  polygamous 
household  of  the  upper  class.  The  knightly  ideal  was 
worked  out  by  a  religious-military  caste,  adopted  enthu- 
siastically by  the  upper  ranks,  and  then  slowly  descended, 
partly  by  aid  of  social  gravity,  to  the  body  of  the  people. 
In  this  process  of  universalizing,  the  pattern  of  the  knight 
has  become  modified  into  that  of  the  gentleman.  Like- 
wise, Bushido,  the  knightly  ideal  that  has  been,  and  still 
is,  the  mould  of  Japanese  character,  was  perfected  within 
the  fighting  caste  of  the  samurai.  Says  Dr.  Nitobe :  ^  "In 
manifold  ways  has  Bushido  filtered  down  from  the  social 
class  where  it  originated,  and  acted  as  a  leaven  among 
the  masses,  furnishing  a  moral  standard  for  the  whole 
people.     The  precepts  of  knighthood,  begun  at  first  as 

>  "  Bushido,"  108. 


RADIANT   POINTS   OF   CONVENTIONALITY 


159 


the  glory  of  the  elite,  became  in  time  an  aspiration  and 
inspiration  to  the  nation  at  large."  ^ 

Very  rapid  propagation  of  a  practice  not  obviously  Aristocracies 
meritorious  is  a  sign  of  steep  social  inequalities,  just  as  theassimi- 
the  rapid  flow  of  rivers  indicates  that  they  find  their  early  peoples 
sources  in  highlands.  In  the  earlier  societies  aristocracies 
were  the  sole  avenue  by  which  foreign  novelties  could 
gain  access  to  a  people.  Says  Tarde  :  ^  "Let  us  picture 
to  ourselves  the  basin  of  the  Mediterranean  in  the  eighth 
century  before  Christ ;  at  the  moment  of  the  great  Tyrian 
or  Sidonian  prosperity,  when  the  Phoenicians,  the  Euro- 
pean carriers  of  the  arts  of  Egypt  and  Assyria,  were 
arousing  among  the  Greeks  and  other  peoples  a  taste 
for  luxurious  and  beautiful  things.  These  merchants 
were  not,  like  the  modern  English,  traders  in  cheap  and 
common  fabrics ;  like  the  mediaeval  Venetians,  they  were 
wont  to  display  along  the  sea-beach  fine  products  that 
appealed  to  the  rich  people  of  all  countries,  purple  gar- 
ments, perfumes,  golden  cups,  figurines,  costly  armor,  ex 
voto  offerings,  graceful  and  charming  ornaments.  Thus 
all  over,  in  Sardinia,  in  Etruria,  in  Greece,  in  the  Archi- 
pelago, in  Asia  Minor,  and  in  Gaul,  the  highest  classes, 
the  select  few,  might  be  seen  wearing  helmets,  swords, 
bracelets,  and  tunics  which  from  one  end  to  the  other  of 

*  The  reader  may  wonder  whether  a  number  of  the  cases  cited  in  this 
and  the  three  previous  paragraphs  do  not  exemplify  rational  imitation 
rather  than  conventional  imitation,  seeing  that  what  the  inferiors  borrowed 
of  the  superiors  was  something  of  real  merit,  better  than  anything  they 
had.  But  the  fact  is  that,  until  the  modern  era  of  democratic  enlighten- 
ment, the  masses  were  too  custom-bound  to  take  a  thing  for  its  merit 
alone.  Nothing  less  than  the  great  prestige  of  social  superiors  could  over- 
come the  resistance  of  their  brute  conservatism,  and  spread  improvements 
among  them. 

^  "Laws  of  Imitations,"  219. 


i6o  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

this  vast  region  were  more  or  less  alike,  while  beneath 
them  the  plebeian  populations  continued  to  be  differen- 
tiated from  one  another  by  their  characteristic  dress  and 
weapons."  A  similar  drawing  together  of  societies  at 
their  tops  occurred  in  the  later  Middle  Ages  when  Vene- 
tian products,  spreading  throughout  Europe,  assimilated 
palaces  and  castles  and  city  mansions  but  not  cottages 
and  huts.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  the  dress  suit  is  the 
same  the  world  over,  while  the  peasant  dress  is  distinctive 
for  each  people.* 
A  live  aris-  An  aristocracy  has,  then,  a  certain  value  as  an  inlet  for 
tocracy  is       foreign  tastes  and  ideas.     Even  though  it  be  not  inven- 

progressive  o  o 

and  cos-  tivc,  it  Can  still  afford  a  good  launching  place  for  inven- 
mopo  tan  ^jons  or  novelties.  In  early  societies  it  helps  to  break  the 
chains  of  custom,  and  so  may  smooth  the  way  for  progress. 
Often  an  aristocracy  is  a  kind  of  social  stand-pipe,  from 
which  under  high  pressure  refined  ideas  and  manners  are 
diffused  throughout  society.^    The  French  upper  classes 

• "  The  Bohemian  nobles  and  aristocracy  became  so  completely 
Germanized  after  the  final  conquest  of  the  country  by  Austria  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  that  their  mode  of  life  at  the  present  day  differs  but  little 
from  that  of  the  same  section  of  society  in  Austria.  It  is  among  the  mid- 
dle and  lower  classes,  and,  above  all,  among  the  peasantry,  that  the 
most  typical  traits  of  the  national  character  are  met  with." — Palmer, 
"  Austro-Hungarian  Life." 

^Says  Bodley:  "The  permeation  of  civilization  to  a  level  in  France 
lower  than  in  other  communities,  is  a  gratifying  feature  of  the  national 
life.  The  country  tradesman  or  the  village  postmaster  often  reveals  in 
his  unstudied  speech  the  urbanity  of  good  breeding,  and  cottagers  some- 
times astonish  strangers  with  their  charm  of  manner.  No  doubt  there 
are  regions  of  France  where  the  peasants  are  boorish,  and  their  personal 
habits  unattractive;  but,  on  the  whole,  their  civilization  is  remarkable. 
Their  stores  of  household  linen,  their  excellent  cooking,  the  propriety 
of  their  attire,  though  not  universal,  exist  as  signs  of  the  force  of  the 
French  race  which  resists  the  disorderliness  of  its  governors.     At  night- 


RADIANT  POINTS   OF   CONVENTIONALITY       i6i 

catch  from  the  English  nobility  field-sports,  tweeds,  rac- 
ing, appreciation  of  country  life,  etc.  In  the  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth  centuries  the  English  aristocracy  formed 
itself  upon  Italian  models,  and  thereby  incidentally  in- 
jected some  Italian  culture  into  the  English ;  later  it  took 
to  French  fashions,  fine  arts,  free  thinking,  etc.  The 
Roman  aristocracy  was  a  medium  through  which  the 
Romans  became  acquainted  with  Greek  ideas,  culture, 
and  civilization.  The  Gaulish  aristocracy  Latinized 
Gaul.  The  Russian  aristocracy  opened  Russia  to  West 
European  influence.  The  nobles  and  samurai  took  the 
lead  in  Europeanizing  Japan.  China's  stagnation  has 
been  owing  in  part  to  the  absence  of  an  aristocracy.  The 
planter  aristocracy  in  the  South  imbued  even  the  plain 
people  in  that  section  with  chivalry  toward  women, 
courteous  manners,  and  a  sense  of  honor  that  supports  a 
higher  plane  of  commercial  honesty  than  is  maintained 
in  the  North.  In  the  South  the  planter  class,  in  the 
North  the  little  red  schoolhouse,  was  the  channel  for  the 
injection  of  culture  and  refinement  into  the  masses.  As 
soon  as  an  aristocracy  becomes  timid  and  obstructive  and 
commits  itself  to  tradition,  its  social  role  declines. 

The  reciprocal  imitation  of  social  equals  is  far  feebler  A  society 
than  the  unilateral  imitation  in  a  graded  society.     In  a  ^^^^^"'^/^'^ 

°  •'  upper  class 

society   of    equals   natural    centres   and   routes   for   the  must  foster 
rapid,   automatic  diffusion  of  culture   are   lacking,   and  educadon 

fall  the  traveller  who  passes  through  remote  villages  sometimes  sees 
through  the  open  cottage  door  the  evening  meal  neatly  laid  with  a  com- 
fort xmknown  in  middle  class  houses  in  other  civilized  lands."  "If 
he  enters  the  humble  abode  of  a  collier  or  of  an  iron-worker,  he  may 
perhaps  see  him  surrounded  by  his  family,  taking  his  dinner  served  with 
accessories  only  found  at  the  tables  of  the  rich  in  other  countries." 
—  "France,"  I,  205. 
M 


l62 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


After  the 
arts  and 
professions 
have  be- 
come dif- 
ferentiated 
a  titular 
aristocracy 
hinders  the 
diffusion  of 
culture 


hence  this  social  type  presumes  unusual  intelligence  and 
progressiveness  in  the  ordinary  man.  Otherwise,  you  get 
stagnation  or  fatuity.  Catholicism  with  its  hierarchical 
determination  of  dogma  has  remained  unified,  whereas 
Protestantism,  lacking  an  aristocracy  of  pope  and  bishops, 
soon  split  up  into  hundreds  of  sects  on  account  of  petty 
theological  differences,  and  saved  itself  only  by  regaining 
a  steadying  leadership  in  the  form  of  an  educated  clergy. 
A  democratic  society  without  due  provision  for  public 
education  will  stagnate;  but  once  adequate  agencies  for 
testing  and  diffusing  culture  have  been  established,  the 
prestige  of  a  titular  upper  class  may  become  oppressive 
and  obstructive.  Thus  Grant  Allen  ^  says:  "This 
profound  and  now  ingrained  belief  in  the  natural  supe- 
riority of  the  Upper  Classes  reacts  in  a  thousand  most 
immoral  ways  upon  English  life.  One  is  never  at  the  end 
of  it.  But  the  worst  of  all  its  corollaries  is  undoubtedly 
this  —  that  it  stands  hopelessly  in  the  way  of  the  recogni- 
tion of  all  real  betternesses.  Nobody  is  anything  by  the 
side  of  the  peer.  His  visible  greatness  eclipses  all  else. 
There  is  not  a  country  in  the  world  so  lord-ridden  as 
England ;  there  is  not  a  country  where  literary  men, 
artists,  thinkers,  discoverers,  great  scientists,  great  poets, 
—  the  prophets  and  seers  of  the  race,  —  fill  so  small  a 
place  comparatively  in  the  public  estimation."  "  Nobody 
who  has  not  lived  long  in  England  can  fully  realize  the 
appalling  extent  to  which  this  gangrene  of  lord-worship, 
county  gentlemen-worship,  flunkeyism,  snobbery,  has 
eaten  into  the  very  heart  and  brain  of  the  nation.  .  .  . 
Nobody  is  ever  thinking  about  real  distinction;  every- 
body is  thinking  about   this  tinsel   sham  which  stands 

*  Cosmopolitan,  Vol.  30,  pp.  659,  662. 


RADIANT   POINTS   OF   CONVENTIONALITY       163 

visible  in  place  of  it.  All  society  is  organized  on  the 
same  extraordinary  and  unreal  basis.  .  .  .  There  exists 
in  England  a  Society  of  Authors,  of  which  Tennyson  was, 
and  Meredith  is,  president.  .  .  .  Yet  its  annual  dinner 
has  usually  been  presided  over,  not  by  Thomas  Hardy 
or  William  Morris,  not  by  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  or 
Andrew  Lang,  hut  —  by  a  casual  lord,  who  has  written  a 
booklet,  fished  up  by  hook  or  crook  from  the  squares  of 
Belgravia.  Would  the  men  of  letters  in  any  other  coun- 
try submit  to  such  an  insult  ?"  "  The  existence  of  a  class 
which  monopolizes  public  attention  on  the  ground  of 
birth  alone,  stands  fatally  in  the  way  of  the  really  superior 
class  which  deserves  and  struggles  toward  recognition  in 
every  direction.  The  artificial  betterness  eclipses  the  nat- 
ural." "  Even  worse  ...  is  the  effect  produced  upon  the 
general  public.  Having  a  wholly  false  standard  of  the  ad- 
mirable set  up  to  them,  our  people  '  meanly  admire  mean 
things,'  as  Thackeray  said;  they  know  and  understand 
little  or  nothing  about  high  ones.  The  average  British 
middle  class  is  the  most  debased,  materialized,  and  soul- 
less bourgeoisie  in  the  whole  world.  Of  art,  of  literature, 
of  poetry,  of  thought,  of  philosophy,  of  movement,  it 
knows  and  cares  nothing.  A  baronet  is  more  to  it  than 
George  Meredith  or  Herbert  Spencer.  Its  ambitions  are 
—  to  make  plenty  of  money,  to  live  in  a  big  house,  to 
keep  a  carriage  and  servants  in  livery,  to  hang  upon  the 
skirts  of  the  aristocracy  if  it  can,  to  ape  them  in  every- 
thing, and  if  possible  to  rise  at  least  as  far  toward  their 
level  as  the  attainment  of  a  knighthood.  Rich  families 
in  America  are  generally  aware  of  the  existence  of  culture 
and  the  desirability  of  acquiring  it,  or  at  least  some  pre- 
tence and  outer  show  of  it.  .  .  .     But  in  England,  most 


i64  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

wealthy  people  do  not  even  pay  this  external  and  formal 
homage  to  culture.  They  do  not  know  it  exists;  they 
do  not  care  for  it,  or  admire  it,  or  value  it  in  others.  They 
wish  to  have  a  private  box  at  the  Oaks,  a  yacht  like  Lord 
Ulster's,  a  coach  and  four,  an  invitation  to  the  garden- 
party  at  the  neighboring  baronet's,  perhaps  even  to  own 
a  Derby  winner,  and  to  rise  to  the  peerage  through  beer 
or  cotton.  That  is  all.  Of  the  real  betternesses  of  life 
they  are  as  innocent  as  a  Central  African  negro." 

"Hence  English  snobbishness,  that  terrible,  all-pervad- 
ing trait  of  English  society  from  top  to  bottom.  Do 
what  you  will,  you  cannot  escape  from  it.  If  you  live 
long  enough  in  the  country,  you  must  inevitably  succumb 
to  it;  you  cannot  emancipate  even  your  own  conduct 
from  some  lingering  taint  of  that  pervasive  malady.  For 
your  neighbors,  your  servants,  your  tradesmen,  your 
dependents,  all  judge  you  and  your  acts,  not  by  what 
you  are  in  yourself,  but  by  the  company  you  keep,  the 
county  society  you  do  or  do  not  know,  the  carriages  with 
footmen  that  stop  at  your  door  or  pass  it  by,  the  post 
assigned  to  you  in  the  ordered  hierarchy  of  the  Lord 
Chamberlain  and  his  flunkeys.  No  one  is  quite  free  from 
this  hateful  superstition.  One  cannot  isolate  one's  self 
absolutely  from  one's  social  atmosphere.  .  .  .  England 
can  never  be  free,  wholesome,  and  whole-souled  till  she 
has  cast  out  forever  these  belated  false  gods,  and  learned 
to  pay  homage  at  the  shrine  of  the  Genuine  Betternesses." 

SUMMARY 

The  social  superior  is  apt  to  be  imitated  by  the  social  inferior. 
This,  however,  will  not  be  the  case  if  the  example  of  the  superior 
clashes  seriously  with  the  instincts  or  circumstances  of  the  inferior. 


RADIANT   POINTS   OF   CONVENTIONALITY       165 

Historically  the  stimulating  example  of  the  superior  has  been  a 
great  factor  in  overcoming  the  immobility  of  the  mass.  At  the  same 
time  it  has  often  given  them  false  guidance. 

Nearly  every  element  in  the  civilization  of  a  people  was  once  the 
exclusive  possession  of  an  upper  class. 

In  some  cases  the  element  has  been  an  outgrowth  of  the  manner 
of  life  and  thought  of  the  upper  class.  Usually,  however,  the  upper 
class  has  served  merely  as  its  launching  place. 

Being  more  closely  in  touch  with  one  another  than  peoples,  aris- 
tocracies have  provided  channels  for  the  diffusion  of  a  cosmopolitan 
culture. 

A  society  of  social  equals  tends  to  stagnate  unless  education,  both 
lower  and  higher,  is  amply  provided  for. 

After  the  various  elements  of  culture  have  come  to  be  cared  for 
by  the  special  arts  and  professions,  the  social  role  of  an  upper  class 
declines,  and  its  influence  may  become  positively  obstructive. 

EXERCISES 

1.  Show  that  the  common  people  react  selectively  upon  the  ex- 
amples set  them  by  the  social  superiors. 

2.  Why  does  the  standard  of  living  rise  so  promptly  with  every 
increase  in  prosperity  that  there  is  scarcely  any  let-up  in  economic 
strain? 

3.  Why  is  it  easier  to  save  money  in  the  country  than  in  the 
city? 

4.  What  social  changes  going  on  in  the  South  hinder  the  negroes 
getting  refinement  and  civiHzation  by  the  old  route,  and  oblige  them 
to  get  it  via  institutions  like  Hampton  and  Tuskegee? 

5.  Compare  the  big  university  with  the  small  college  in  power  to 
form  and  refine  the  student. 

6.  Does  any  good  thing  spread  by  social  gravity  which  might 
not  be  dirfused  by  the  school? 


CHAPTER  X 


THE  RADIANT  POINTS  OF  CONVENTIONALITY   {ConHnued) 


The  power- 
holder  is 
copied 


The  ex- 
ample of  a 
Roman 
emperor 
contagious 


The  holder  of  power  is  imitated. 

This  is  to  say  that  the  hierarchical  superior  in  any  au- 
thoritative organization  —  governmental,  ecclesiastical, 
educational,  or  industrial  —  is  by  the  very  power  he  wields 
clothed  with  prestige  in  the  eyes  of  some,  and  becomes 
therefore  a  radiant  point  of  imitations.  Quite  aside  from 
the  motive  of  currying  favor,  people  copy  the  power-holder 
because  the  presumption  of  superiority  attaches  to  the 
example  set  by  one  on  so  glittering  a  pinnacle. 

Says  Dill:  ^  "The  example  of  an  emperor  must  always 
be  potent  for  good  or  evil.  We  have  the  testimony  of 
Pliny  and  Claudium,  separated  by  an  interval  of  three 
hundred  years,  that  the  world  readily  conforms  its  life 
to  that  of  one  man,  if  that  man  is  the  head  of  the  state. 
Nero's  youthful  enthusiasm  for  declamation  gave  an  im- 
mense impulse  to  the  passion  for  rhetoric.  His  enthu- 
siasm for  acting  and  music  spread  through  all  ranks,  and 
the  Emperor's  catches  were  sung  at  wayside  inns.  M. 
Aurelius  made  philosophy  the  mode,  and  the  Stoic  Em- 
peror is  responsible  for  some  of  the  philosophic  imposture 
which  moved  the  withering  scorn  of  Lucian.  The  Em- 
peror's favorite  drug  grew  so  popular  that  the  price  of  it 
became  almost  prohibitory.  If  the  model  Vespasian's 
homely  habits  had  such  an  eSect  in  reforming  society, 


*  "Roman  Society  from  Nero  to  Marcus  Aurelius,"  31. 

166 


RADIANT   POINTS   OF   CONVENTIONALITY       167 

we  may  be  sure  that  the  evil  example  of  his  spendthrift 
predecessors  did  at  least  as  much  to  deprave  it." 

Upon  the  provincials  the  example  of  the  Imperial  City  Provincial 
seemed  to  cast  a  magic  spell.     Dill  elsewhere '  says :  —       ^0^*'°''  °^ 

"Although  for  generations  there  was  a  settled  abstinence 
from  centralization  on  the  part  of  the  imperial  government, 
the  many  varieties  of  civic  constitution  in  the  provinces 
tended  by  an  irresistible  drift  to  a  uniform  type  of  organi- 
zation. Free  and  federate  communities  voluntarily  sought 
the  position  of  a  colony  or  a  municipium.  Just  as  the 
provincial  town  must  have  its  capitol,  with  the  cult  of 
Jupiter,  Juno,  and  Minerva,  or  imported  the  street  names 
Velabrum  or  Vicus  Tuscus,  so  the  little  community  called 
itself  respublica,  its  commons  the  populus,  its  curia  the 
senate  or  the  amplissimus  et  splendidissimus  or  do;  its 
magistrates  sometimes  bore  the  majestic  names  of  praetor, 
dictator,  or  censor,  in  a  few  cases  even  of  consul.  This 
almost  ludicrous  imitation  of  the  great  city  is  an  example 
of  the  magical  power  which  Rome  always  exercised  on 
her  most  distant  subjects,  and  even  on  the  outer  world  of 
barbarism,  down  to  the  last  days  when  her  forces  were 
ebbing  away." 

The  direction  of  the  current  of  imitation  reveals  the 
seat  of  power.  Always  the  nobility  imitates  its  king  and  The  head  of 
the  masses  copy  the  nobles.  "In  Byzantium,"  says  radiant  point 
Baudrillart,  "the  court  looked  to  the  prince,  the  city  to 
the  court,  and  the  country  to  the  city  in  the  matter  of 
luxury."  Louis  XIV  completed  the  hierarchization  of 
French  society  under  royalty.  The  obligation  of  every 
noble  to  attend  the  court  ^  opened  routes  by  which  the 

*  Ibid.,  204. 

2 See  Taine,  "The  Ancient  Regime,"  43-46. 


i68 


SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 


National 
imitation 
of  court 
luxuries 
and  ex- 
travagances 


ll 


vanities  and  prodigalities  of  Versailles  were  automatically 
diffused  throughout  France.  St.  Simon  observes: 
"Luxury  is  a  plague  which  once  introduced  becomes  an 
internal,  all-devouring  cancer,  because  from  the  court  it 
is  promptly  communicated  to  Paris  and  throughout  the 
provinces  and  the  army." 

So  seductive  was  the  example  of  the  powerful  that  it 
was  deemed  necessary  to  restrain  by  sumptuary  laws  the 
eagerness  of  the  lower  orders  to  emulate  the  extravagance 
of  the  nobles.  Tarde,^  speaking  of  "the  tendency  to  ape 
the  hierarchical  superior  and  the  rapidity  with  which  this 
inclination  has  at  all  times  satisfied  itself  at  the  least 
gleam  of  prosperity,"  says:  "The  frequency  of  the  sump- 
tuary edicts  during  the  entire  period  of  the  old  regime  is  a 
proof  of  this,  just  as  the  multiplicity  of  a  river's  dikes 
bears  witness  to  the  impetuosity  of  its  current.  The  first 
French  Court  dates  from  Charles  VIII ;  but  we  must  not 
imagine  that  the  imitative  contagion  of  court  manners  and 
luxury  took  several  centuries  to  reach  down  to  the  com- 
mon people  of  France.  From  Louis  XII  on,  this  influence 
was  felt  everywhere.  The  disasters  of  the  religious  wars 
arrested  this  development  in  the  sixteenth  century,  but  in 
the  following  century  it  started  up  again.  Then  the 
miseries  brought  on  by  the  later  wars  of  the  Grand  Mon- 
arch occasioned  another  set-back.  In  the  course  of  the 
eighteenth  century  there  was  a  fresh  start;  under  the 
Revolution  another  reaction.  With  the  First  Empire  the 
advance  began  again  on  a  great  scale ;  but  thenceforward 
it  assumed  a  democratic  form  which  we  shall  not  consider 
at  this  moment.  Under  Francis  I,  under  Henry  II,  the 
spread  of  luxury  begun  under  Louis  XII  continued.    At 

*  "Laws  of  Imitations,"  218. 


RADIANT  POINTS   OF   CONVENTIONALITY       169 

this  period  a  sumptuary  law  forbade '  all  peasants,  laborers, 
and  valets  (save  those  attached  to  princes)  to  wear  silken 
doublets  or  hose  overlaid  or  puffed  out  with  silk.'  From 
1543  to  the  time  of  the  League  there  were  eight  important 
ordinances  against  luxury.  '  Some  of  them,'  says  Baudril- 
lart,  'apply  to  every  French  subject;  they  forbid  the  use 
of  cloth  of  gold,  of  silver,  or  of  silk.'  Such  was  the  ele- 
gance prevailing  on  the  eve  of  the  wars  of  religion."  In 
justifying  laws  in  restraint  of  trade  "one  of  the  reasons 
most  frequently  advanced  was  that  France  was  ruining 
herself  in  the  purchase  of  foreign  luxuries." 

The  more  successful  is  imitated  by  the  less  successful. 

In  the  eyes  of  some,  not  the  high,  but  the  rising,  are  Thearistoc- 
clothed  with  prestige.  Lofty  station  is  ambiguous;  it  achievement 
may  or  may  not  testify  to  rare  prowess.  Often  it  is  owed 
to  birth,  marriage,  favor,  or  luck.  But  the  man  who 
makes  his  way  upward  by  achievement  furnishes  thereby 
signal  proof  of  his  power.  Occasionally  the  strong  climber 
has  a  proper  pride  in  his  achievement  and  flaunts  it  in  the 
face  of  the  aristocracy  of  birth.  Pope  Urban  IV,  the  son 
of  a  cobbler,  who  himself  had  worked  at  the  trade,  chose 
a  cobbler's  tools  as  his  symbol.  Senator  Sawyer  of  Wis- 
consin, who  made  a  fortune  in  sawmilling,  put  on  his 
carriage  the  Latin  word  vidi,  which,  being  translated, 
signifies  "I  saw!"  The  active  element  in  society  recog- 
nizes that  the  aristocracy  of  achievement  belongs  to  the 
present,  not  to  the  past.  It  stands  for  some  good  thing 
lately  done,  not  for  something  which  has  long  gone  by. 
"When  Theodore  Parker  first  visited  Cincinnati,  at  that 
time  the  recognized  leader  among  Western  cities,  he  said 
that  he  had  made  a  great  discovery,  namely,  that  while 
the  aristocracy  of  Cincinnati  was  unquestionably  founded 


I70 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


on  pork,  it  made  a  great  difference  whether  a  man  killed 
pigs  for  himself,  or  whether  his  father  had  killed  them. 
The  one  was  held  plebeian,  the  other  patrician.  It  was 
the  difference,  Parker  said,  between  the  stick  'ems  and  the 
stuck  'ems;  and  his  own  sympathies,  he  confessed,  were 
with  the  present  tense.  It  was,  in  other  words,  aristocracy 
in  the  making."  ^ 
The  "men  The  tendency  of  men  of  achievement  to  wrest  social 
who  do  leadership  from  the  hereditary  titular  aristocracy  is  brought 

thing's "  ^ 

dispute  the     out  by  Tainc."     "  On  the  one  hand,  the  nobles  are  drawn 
preeminence    nearer    to     the    Third-Estate,    and    on    the    other,    the 

of  the  titled  ,  i  ,  i 

Third-Estate  is  drawn  nearer  to  the  nobles,  actual 
equality  having  preceded  equality  as  a  right.  On  the 
approach  of  the  year  1789  it  was  difficult  to  distinguish 
one  from  the  other  in  the  street.  The  sword  is  no 
longer  worn  by  gentlemen  in  the  cities;  they  have 
abandoned  embroideries  and  laces  and  walk  about  in 
plain  frock-coats  or  drive  themselves  in  their  cabriolets. 
'The  simplicity  of  English  customs,'  and  the  customs  of 
the  Third-Estate  seem  to  them  better  adapted  to  ordinary 
life.  Their  prominence  proves  irksome  to  them,  and 
they  grow  weary  of  being  always  on  parade.  Henceforth 
they  accept  familiarity  that  they  may  enjoy  freedom  of 
action  and  are  content  '  to  mingle  with  their  fellow-citizens 
without  obstacle  or  ostentation.'  ...  An  equalization  of 
the  ways  and  externals  of  life  is,  indeed,  only  a  manifesta- 
tion of  the  equalization  of  minds  and  tempers.  The 
antique  scenery  being  torn  away  indicates  the  disappear- 
ance of  the  sentiments  to  which  it  belonged.  ...  If  the 
nobles  dress  like  the  bourgeoisie,  it  is  owing  to  their  having 

^Colonel  Higginson  in  The  Atlantic  Monthly,  93,  p.  510. 
^  "Ancient  Regime,"  31 1-3 15. 


RADIANT   POINTS   OF   CONVENTIONALITY       171 

become  bourgeois,  that  is  to  say,  idlers  retired  from  busi- 
ness, with  nothing  to  do  but  to  talk  and  amuse  them- 
selves.    Undoubtedly  they  amuse  themselves  and  converse 
Hke    people  of    refinement ;  but    it    is    not  very  difficult 
to   equal   them   in   this  respect.     Now   that   the  Third- 
Estate  has  acquired  its  wealth  a  good  many  plebeians 
have   become   people   of   society.  .  .  .     Their   sons  .  .  . 
throw  money  out  of  the  window  with  as  much  elegance 
as  the  young  dukes  with  whom  they  sup.     A  parvenu  with 
money  and  intellect  soon  becomes  brightened  and  his  son, 
if  not  himself,  is  initiated :    a  few  years'  exercises  in  an 
academy,  a  dancing  master,  and  one  of  the  four  thou- 
sand public  offices  which  confer  nobility,  supply  him  with 
the  deficient  externals.  .  .  .     After  this  intermixture  of 
classes  and  this  displacement  of  character,  what  superiority 
rests  with  the  nobles?      By  what  special  merit,  through 
what  recognized  capacity  are  they  to  secure  the  respect 
of  a  member  of  the  Third-Estate?  .  .  .     What  superior 
education,  what  familiarity  with  affairs,  what  experience 
with  government,  what  political  instruction,  what  local 
ascendency,    what    moral    authority,  can    be    alleged    to 
sanction  their  pretensions  to  the  highest  places?     In  the 
way  of  practice,  the  Third-Estate  already  does  the  work, 
providing  the  qualified  men,  the  intendants,  the  ministerial 
head  clerks,  the  lay  and  ecclesiastical  administrators,  the 
competent  laborers  of  all  kind  and  degrees.  .  .  .     Con- 
sider the  young  men  who,  about  twenty  years  of  age  in 
1780,  bom  in  industrious  families,  accustomed  to  effort 
and  able  to  work  twelve  hours  a  day,  a  Barnave,  a  Carnot, 
a  Roederer,  a  Merlin  de  Thionville,  a  Robespierre,  an 
energetic  race  conscious  of  its  strength,  criticising  their 
rivals,   aware   of  their   weakness,   comparing   their  own 


172  SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

application  and  education  to  their  levity  and  incompetency, 
and,  at  the  moment  when  youthful  ambition  stirs  within 
them,  seeing  themselves  excluded  in  advance  from  any 
superior  position,  consigned  for  life  to  subaltern  employ- 
ment, and  subjected  in  every  career  to  the  precedence  of 
superiors  whom  they  hardly  recognize  as  their  equals. 
At  the  artillery  examinations  where  Cherin,  the  genealo- 
gist, refuses  plebeians,  and  where  the  Abbe  Bosen,  a 
mathematician,  rejects  the  ignorant,  it  is  discovered  that 
capacity  is  wanting  among  the  noble  pupils  and  nobility 
among  the  capable  pupils,  the  two  qualities  of  gentility 
and  intelligence  seeming  to  exclude  each  other,  as 
there  are  but  four  or  five  out  of  a  hundred  pupils  who 
combine  the  two  conditions.  Now,  as  society  at  this  time 
is  mixed,  such  tests  are  frequent  and  easy.  Whether 
lawyer,  physician,  or  man  of  letters,  a  member  of  the 
Third-Estate  with  whom  a  duke  converses  familiarly,  who 
sits  in  a  diligence  alongside  of  a  count-colonel  of  hussars, 
can  appreciate  his  companion  or  his  interlocutor,  weigh 
his  ideas,  test  his  merit,  and  esteem  him  at  his  just  value. 
.  .  .  The  nobility  having  lost  a  special  capacity,  and  the 
Third-Estate  having  acquired  a  general  capacity,  they  are 
on  a  par  in  education  and  in  aptitudes,  the  inequality 
which  separated  them  becoming  offensive  and  becoming 
useless." 
The  sue-  Society  is  called  democratic  not  because  a  social  hier- 

modeLrnd  ^'''chy  is  absent,  but  because  its  hierarchy  is  formed  on 
pace-setters  the  Competitive  rather  than  the  hereditary  principle. 
With  us,  not  kings,  princes,  and  nobles,  but  bankers, 
merchant  princes,  railroad  magnates,  capitalists,  officials, 
politicians,  editors,  educators,  writers,  and  artists  occupy 
the  high  seats,  hold  the  baton,  and  beat  time  for  the  great 


RADIANT   POINTS    OF   CONVENTIONALITY       173 

social  orchestra.  Society  is  no  longer  a  many-storied 
pagoda  of  closed  castes,  but  a  pyramid  whose  sides,  narrow- 
ing toward  the  top,  provide  a  hierarchy  of  places  into 
which  individuals  climb,  or  to  which  they  are  admitted 
on  demonstrating  their  superior  merit.  As  in  wealth, 
so  in  eminence  and  fame,  democracy  tolerates  many 
inequalities;  but  these  are  of  recent,  not  remote,  origin. 
As  the  boundaries  between  sections,  classes,  and  nations 
fade  out,  the  chorus  of  acclaim  that  greets  the  man  of 
transcendent  genius  becomes  vaster,  for  the  bigger  the 
audience,  the  greater  the  glory  to  be  distributed  among 
the  actors.  The  apotheosis  in  our  time  of  Lincoln,  Gari- 
baldi, Victor  Hugo,  Tolstoi,  Paderewski,  Bernhardt, 
and  Booth  reveals  among  us  pinnacles  of  literary  and 
artistic  glory  never  before  dreamt  of. 

The   more  dynamic  a  period,   the  more  quickly  the  in  the 
social  sceptre  passes  from  type  to  type.     Some  evidence  g^^'^^^^^  ^^^ 
is  accruing  that  the  "men  who  do  things"  will  be  obliged  educated  are 
to  yield  somewhat   to  the  educated.     Munsterberg  ^  ob-  ^^^  leldef- 
serves:   "The  most  important  factor  in  the  aristocratic  ship  of  the 

cijpf  pec  fill 

differentiation  of  America  is  higher  education  and  culture, 
and  this  becomes  more  important  every  day.  .  .  .  The 
social  importance  ascribed  to  a  college  graduate  is  all  the 
time  growing.  It  was  kept  back  for  a  long  time  by  un- 
fortunate prejudices.  Because  other  than  intellectual 
forces  had  made  the  nation  strong,  and  everywhere  in 
the  foreground  of  public  activity  there  were  vigorous  and 
influential  men  who  had  not  continued  their  education 
beyond  the  public  grammar  school,  so  the  masses  in- 
stinctively believed  that  insight,  real  energy,  and  enter- 
prise were  better  developed  in  the  school  of  life  than  in 
'"The  Americans,"  600-602. 


174 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


Men  of 
achievement 
are  imitated 
with  more 
discrimina- 
tion than 
an  upper 
class 


the  world  of  books.  The  college  student  was  thought 
of  as  a  weakling,  in  a  way,  who  might  have  many  fine 
theories  about  things,  but  who  would  never  take  hold  to 
help  solve  the  great  national  problems  —  a  sort  of  aca- 
demic 'mugwump,'  but  not  a  leader.  The  banking  house, 
factory,  farm,  the  mine,  the  law  office,  and  the  political 
position  were  all  thought  better  places  for  the  young 
American  man  than  the  college  lecture  halls.  .  .  .  This 
has  profoundly  changed  now,  and  changes  more  with  every 
year.  .  .  .  The  change  has  taken  place  in  regard  to  what 
is  expected  of  the  college  student ;  distrust  has  vanished, 
and  people  realize  that  the  intellectual  discipline  which 
he  has  had  until  his  twenty-second  year  in  the  artificial 
and  ideal  world  is  after  all  the  best  training  for  the  great 
duties  of  public  life,  and  that  academic  training,  less 
by  its  subject-matter  than  by  its  methods,  is  the  best 
possible  preparation  for  practical  activity.  .  .  .  The 
leading  positions  in  the  disposal  of  the  nation  are  almost 
entirely  in  the  hands  of  men  of  academic  training,  and 
the  mistrust  of  the  theorizing  college  spirit  has  given 
place  to  a  situation  in  which  university  presidents  and 
professors  have  much  to  say  on  all  practical  questions 
of  public  life,  and  the  college  graduates  are  the  real  sup- 
porters of  every  movement  toward  reform  and  civiliza- 
tion." 

In  a  society  of  hereditary  grades  the  superior  is  copied 
by  the  inferior  in  everything;  the  stream  of  imitation 
flows  mostly  one  way,  is  unilateral.  But  where  the  grad- 
ing is  elective  or  social,  the  superior  is  imitated  most  in 
that  particular  excellence  which  has  won  him  acclaim 
and  distinction.  Hence  no  one  person  or  class  sets  the 
pace  in  everything.     A  Kipling  is  imitated  in  point  of 


RADIANT  POINTS   OF   CONVENTIONALITY       175 

literary  style,  a  Booth  in  acting,  a  Gibson  in  drawing, 
a  Sargent  in  painting,  a  Brummel  in  dress,  a  Corbett 
in  pugilistics.  But  the  leader  in  one  thing  follows  in  some 
other  things,  so  that  the  imitation  becomes  multilateral, 
and,  to  a  certain  extent,  rational. 

Nevertheless,  such  rationalizing  does  not  proceed  very 
far  for  the  reason  stated  by  Cooley  when  he  says :  *  "When 
there  is  a  real  personal  superiority,  ascendency  is  seldom 
confined  to  the  traits  in  which  this  is  manifested,  but, 
once  established  in  regard  to  these  traits,  it  tends  to 
envelop  the  leader  as  a  whole,  and  to  produce  allegiance 
to  him  as  a  concrete  person.  This  comes,  of  course, 
from  the  difficulty  of  breaking  up  and  sifting  that  which 
presents  itself  to  the  senses,  and  through  them  to  the 
mind,  as  a  single  living  whole.  And  as  the  faults  and 
weaknesses  of  a  great  man  are  commonly  much  easier 
to  imitate  than  his  excellences,  it  often  happens,  as  in 
the  case  of  Michael  Angelo,  that  the  former  are  much  more 
conspicuous  in  his  followers  than  the  latter." 

The  rich  are  imitated  by  the  poor. 

There  are  times  and  circles  in  which  wealth  sums  up  the  Among 


Humanly  Desirable,  and  the  possession  of  wealth  creates  ^^'"°^°'^ 

•^  '  ^  worshippers 

an  irresistible  presumption  of  superiority.  Then  one  the  example 
verifies  the  saying  of  the  Hindu  epic  poet,  "That  which  is  ^^j^QfectTo^s 
called  the  wealthy  is  a  very  important  member  of  the  state ; 
for  verily  a  man  with  money  is  the  top  of  all  creation." 
Then,  in  matters  of  opinion  and  conviction  as  well  as 
in  the  trappings  and  formalities  of  life,  the  rich  will  wield 
the  baton,  no  matter  how  destitute  they  may  be  of  outlook, 
ideas,  taste,  or  refinement.  When  the  worship  of  Mammon 
is  widespread  the  millionnaire  is  a  high  authority,  not 
*  "Human  Nature  and  the  Social  Order,"  309. 


176  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

only  in  the  technique  of  money-making,  but  in  every- 
thing else  as  well.  He  is  interviewed  on  every  fresh 
topic  that  crops  up  in  public  discussion.  His  crassest  stu- 
pidities have  the  indescribable  charm  of  coming  from  a 
"solid"  man.  A  string  of  platitudes  in  the  heavy 
Olympian  style  of  Croesus  is  as  much  prized  as  a  leaf 
from  a  Sibylline  Book.  When  he  expounds  the  vulpine 
ethics  that  justify  his  career,  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount 
is  rocked  to  its  base.  Upon  the  nod  or  frown  of  the  boxes 
hangs  the  fate  of  the  artist,  the  composer,  the  playwright. 
The  pastimes,  entertainments,  and  extravagances  of  the 
rich  are  eagerly  noted  and  enthusiastically  aped  by  the 
multitude  immediately  below  them  in  the  cash  scale. 
Small  fry  mortgage  their  homes  to  acquire  an  automobile 
which  serves  them  about  as  well  as  an  eight-day  clock  in 
the  hut  of  a  negro  who  can't  tell  time.^ 
The  rise  of  Yellow  joumalism  itself  originated  in  the  vertigo  that 
theAmeri-      ^  generation  ago  began  to  seize  upon  the  people  of  the 

can  dollar-  ^  "  °  iii«it 

ocracy  Northern   cities   when   they   contemplated   the   rich.     It 

was  born  in  1882  out  of  a  conversation  in  which  Mr. 
Pulitzer,  of  the  New  York  World,  thus  noted  the  rise  of 
the  dollarocracy.^ 

"The  trouble  with  the  American  people  to-day  is  their 
assumed    independence.     They   imagine    that    they    are 

^  "  So  mad  has  the  race  for  social  supremacy  become  that  many  owners 
of  houses  worth  from  $5000  to  $10,000,  which  they  have  acquired  after 
years  of  toil  and  saving,  are  mortgaging  them  in  order  to  buy  automobiles. 
So  fearful  are  they  of  being  outshone  by  their  neighbors  that  they  are 
resorting  to  the  most  reckless  extravagance  and  trying  to  present  the 
appearance  of  wealth  on  an  income  not  exceeding  $150  a  month."  From 
the  report  of  a  committee  of  the  New  Era  Women's  Club  of  Pittsburg  as 
given  in  the  press  of  July  18,  1907. 

2  Public  Opinion,  XXXVIII,  269. 


RADIANT  POINTS   OF   CONVENTIONALITY       177 

alone  in  the  universe.  They  are  wealth-mad.  They  see 
it  on  every  side  of  them  —  money  and  the  work  of  money. 
They  have  created  fortunes,  and  they  don't  know  how 
to  spend  them.  Those  who  have  not  succeeded  in  amass- 
ing money  worship  those  who  have,  and  these  worshippers 
are  in  the  majority.  Their  every  thought  is  to  become 
like  the  rich ;  to  emulate  their  every  act  and  success.  It 
is  a  sensation  with  them ;    they  crave  sensation. 

*'  To  be  rich  is  the  one  object  of  the  masses  in  every  walk 
of  life  in  this  country  to-day.  There  is  nothing  akin  to 
this  money  craze  in  the  older  countries  of  Europe,  but 
in  place  of  it  they  have  an  aristocracy  there.  They 
expend  their  sentiment  on  that.  .  .  .  Give  the  people 
what  they  want.  Give  them  an  aristocracy.  Tell  them 
how  these  men  and  women  have  become  rich.  Tell  the 
people  how  they  spend  their  money;  what  they  say; 
how  they  live ;  what  their  ambitions  are.  Tell  it  with 
pictures.     Tell  it  interestingly  and  we  will  sell  this  paper." 

Mr.  Watterson  ^  thus  pronounces  upon  the  new  sceptre- 
holders  from  the  view-point  of  an  older  and  finer  upper 
class. 

"The  Smart  Set  is  rotten  through  and  through.     It  Barbarizing 
has  not  one  redeeming  feature.     All  its  ends  are  achieved  ^g'doikr- 
by  money  and  largely  by  the  unholy  use  of  money.     If  ocracy 
one  of  them  proposes  to  go  into  politics,  he  expects  to  buy 
his  way,  and  the  rogues  who  have  seats  in  Congress  or 
foreign  appointments  to  sell,  see  that  he  pays  the  price. 
If  one  of  them  wants  to  marry  a  lord,  she  expects  to 
buy  him,  and  the  titled  scamps  who  seek  to  recoup  their 
broken    fortunes    see    that    she    pays    the    price.     Their 
influence  is  to  the  last  degree  corruptive.     Their  hangers- 

*  "  Compromises  of  Life,"  461  passim. 
N 


178  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

on  and  retainers  are  only  such  as  money  will  buy.  Nine 
out  of  every  ten  of  the  fortunes  behind  them  will  not 
bear  scrutiny ;  when  it  is  not  actually  got  by  foul  means, 
it  yet  goes  back  to  the  grimiest  antecedents,  the  wash- 
tub  and  the  stable  yard.  .  .  .  Must  these  uncleanly 
birds  of  gaudy,  and  therefore  of  conspicuous,  plumage 
fly  from  gilded  bough  to  bough,  fouling  the  very  air  as 
they  twitter  their  affectations  of  social  supremacy  and  no 
one  to  shy  a  brick  and  to  cry,  'Scat,  you  devils!'  .  .  . 
From  Maine  to  California  there  are  myriads  of  cheer- 
ful, comfortable  homes  where  'Dad'  and  'Mam'  and 
'Granny,'  yea,  and  'Molly'  and  'Polly'  and  'Susey' 
and  'Sis'  lead  clean  and  wholesome  lives,  happy  in  their 
ignorance  of  evil  such  as  in  the  mouths  of  the  Smart  Set 
is  familiar  as  household  words;  not  merely  an  honest, 
brawny  people,  who  work  for  a  living,  and  would  scorn  to 
have  any  earls  or  marquises  sitting  around  on  their  cracker 
barrels,  but  educated,  cultivated  people,  with  plenty  of 
money  for  all  of  the  reasonable  luxuries  and  adornments 
of  life,  who  would  blush  to  sit  at  table  with  these  unclean 
birds  and  to  listen  to  their  chatter." 
The  spread  Not  long  ago  a  Newport  divine,  preaching  against 
of  the  pe-       divorce,  pleaded  with  his  fashionable  congregation  to  order 

cuniary  civ-  ^  ^  00 

iiization  thcmselvcs  morc  strictly  in  things  marital.  "Remember," 
he  said  to  them  in  effect,  "your  example  in  family  matters 
is  followed  by  eighty  millions  of  people."  Shortly  after 
an  eminent  Southern  writer  hotly  denounced  the  clerical 
admonition  as  a  slander,  and  denied  that  any  considerable 
section  of  the  American  people  heeds  the  example  of  the 
Newport  plutocracy  in  any  serious  relation  of  life.  The 
rebuke  was  just,  yet  the  virus  of  wealth-worship  spreads 
and  area  after  area  is  infected.     Baltimore,  Richmond, 


RADIANT   POINTS   OF   CONVENTIONALITY       179 

Charleston,  Savannah,  Louisville,  —  strongholds  of  a  dif- 
ferent prestige,  —  begin  to  suspect  that  they  are  provincial. 
The  cold-cash  standard  of  human  excellence,  having 
conquered  the  big  cities  in  the  North,  is  now  reducing 
the  smaller  centres  and  the  country.^ 

*  In  her  introduction  to  "  Fads  and  Fancies,"  a  sumptuous  volume 
of  "puffs"  of  the  leaders  in  New  York  society,  a  distinguished  literary 
woman,  Mrs.  Burton  Harrison,  remarks:  — 

"Toward  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  we  find  the  sociologists 
and  commentators  upon  our  best  society  beginning  to  discuss  the  points 
with  sufficient  vigor  and  lifting  up  their  voices  in  public  print  against  the 
decadence  of  republican  manners  and  customs,  resulting  from  the  great 
wealth  and  material  prosperity  of  our  country.  Then,  as  now,  it  was 
New  York  that  came  in  for  the  lion's  share  of  the  abuse. 

"Boston,  Philadelphia,  Baltimore,  and  Washington  still  held  to  their 
old  traditions.  Richmond,  Charleston,  and  Savannah  were  hedged 
behind  a  thorny  growth  of  antique  customs  and  exclusiveness.  Chicago 
and  San  Francisco  were  yet  to  be  heard  from  as  rivals  in  the  race  for 
civic  preeminence  and  social  outlay.  .  .  . 

"What  would  the  valiant  crusader  against  'hypocrisy,  the  devil,  and 
the  luxury  of  Corinth,'  as  set  forth  by  his  charming  and  pungent  Poti- 
phar  Papers,  say  to  the  multiplication  of  the  outward  and  visible  signs  of 
plutocratic  life  in  America  to-day  —  a  half  century  farther  down  the 
stream  of  time  ? 

"The  same  society  endures,  has  surprised  itself,  astonished  the  world 
by  its  magnificence,  goes  on  increasing  the  methods  of  ridding  itself  of 
superfluous  fortunes  —  and  as  yet  no  fire  from  Heaven  has  fallen  into 
its  ranks. 

"We  cannot  gainsay  the  fact  that  wealth  and  the  power  it  brings  rule 
supreme  in  our  land.  Especially  would  it  be  pains  thrown  away  to  try 
to  epitomize  the  best  society  of  America  as  represented  by  the  present 
dwellers  in  cosmopolitan  New  York,  without  continual  reference  to  the 
golden  basis  upon  which  it  stands." 


i8o  SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 


SUMMARY 


The  possessor  of  power  bedazzles  and  fascinates. 

Currents  of  imitation  radiate  from  rulers. 

In  monarchies  the  extravagance  of  the  court  spreads  outward 
and  has  a  pernicious  effect  upon  the  tastes  and  wants  of  the  people. 

If  a  titular  aristocracy  be  closed,  a  moment  comes  when  its  social 
leadership  is  disputed  by  the  men  of  distinguished  achievement. 

In  a  society  without  a  hereditary  upper  class  the  conspicuously 
successful  are  looked  up  to  and  copied. 

The  imitation  of  the  successful  is  altogether  more  discriminating 
and  rational  than  the  imitation  of  a  titled  nobility. 

When  wealth  is  supremely  coveted,  the  rich  are  admired  and 
imitated. 

The  diffusion  of  pecuniary  standards  of  excellence  from  the 
dollarocracy  whets  greed  and  lowers  the  moral  tone  of  society. 

EXERCISES 

1.  What  elements  enter  into  the  standard  by  which  a  person  is 
valued  in  your  community,  and  what  is  their  order  of  importance  ? 

2.  Is  the  attitude  of  the  public  the  same  toward  the  man  who 
has  married  money,  as  toward  the  man  who  has  made  money? 

3.  Show  the  difference  in  tone  and  standards  between  the  self- 
made  rich  and  the  hereditarily  rich.  Contrast  their  influence  on 
society. 

4.  If  the  successful  compose  the  influential  social  class,  what  will 
be  the  effect  upon  the  birth  rate?  Upon  the  frequency  of  heart- 
failure  and  neurasthenia? 

5.  If  the  general  avidity  for  wealth  be  intensified,  what  will  be 
the  effect  upon  commercial,  professional,  and  poHtical  ethics  ?  Upon 
the  motives  to  social  intercourse  and  to  matrimony? 

6.  Show  how  training  in  a  professional  school  instead  of  an 
office  favors  the  efliciency  standard  of  human  worth  as  against  the 
cash  standard. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE   RADIANT    POINTS    OF    CONVENTIONALITY    (Concluded) 

The  city  is  imitated  by  the  country. 

City  dwellers  never  keep  abreast  of  country  dwellers  Highpo- 
in  reproduction,  and  hence  the  city  is  constantly  fed  with  4^"^^^^  ° 
the  overflow  from  the  farms,  an  overflow  that  is,  in  a  sense, 
the  cream  of  the  rural  population,  for  it  consists  of  stirring 
and  ambitious  persons  who  migrate  to  the  city  early  in 
the  active  period  of  life.  Freshened  constantly  with 
such  efifervescent  elements,  the  city  never  becomes  tradi- 
tional and  stagnant,  as  it  might  well  do  if  it  raised  its  own 
population.  Moreover,  these  eager  young  immigrants, 
fleeing  the  deadness  of  quiet  neighborhoods  and  the 
tedium  of  humdrum  villages,  sharpen  and  brighten  one 
another.  Outworn  traditions,  narrow  local  sentiments, 
and  obstinate  provincial  prejudices  meet  and  cancel 
one  another.  A  type  of  mentality  emerges  more  impres- 
sionable and  plastic  than  that  of  the  farms.  The  shutters 
of  the  intellect  are  swung  back.  The  mind  becomes 
alert  and  supple.  Freed  from  the  hampering  net  of  kin 
and  class  ties,  the  individual  appears.  The  city  is,  there- 
fore, a  hotbed,  where  seed  ideas  quickly  germinate. 
Its  progressive  population  naturally  places  itself  at  the 
head  of  the  social  procession  and  sets  the  pace  for  the 
slower  country  dwellers. 

Says   a   distinguished    economist:^     "The    two    great 

'Professor  Jastrow    in  Congress  of    Arts  and    Sciences,  VII,  771- 
772. 

181 


l82 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


The  cities 
pass  the 
torch  to 
the  rest 
of  society 


The  cities 
cast  a  spell 
upon  the 
country 


founders  of  modern  pedagogy,  Rousseau  and  Pestalozzi, 
have  sprung  from  cities.  The  universities  can,  in  their 
modern  organization,  be  traced  back,  in  Europe  as  well 
as  in  America,  to  the  model  established  by  Bologna  and 
Paris,  centres  of  urban  culture.  The  numerous  founda- 
tions of  universities  in  the  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries 
were  made  exclusively  in  cities;  they  represented  the 
reaction  against  the  older,  monastic,  world-shunning 
learnedness,  as  also  only  those  monastic  orders  took 
hold  of  them,  which  in  the  two  preceding  centuries  had 
sought  their  seats  not  in  rural  loneliness,  but  in  the  cities." 
"The  city  acquires  cultural  treasures,  but  only  in  order 
to  let  them  radiate  and  in  order  to  begin,  thereupon,  the 
work  again  on  new  materials.  Its  educational  work 
is  a  constant  renunciation  of  acquired  privileges.  This 
is  shown  especially  clearly  in  America  in  the  history  of 
the  library  movement.  This  movement  has  begun  espe- 
cially in  the  cities.  First  it  was  the  ambition  of  each 
city  to  surpass  the  country  by  the  possession  of  a  public 
library,  accessible  to  everybody.  To-day  it  is  the  am- 
bition of  the  cities  to  induce  the  country  to  follow  their 
example." 

Thanks  to  its  real  superiorities,  everything  about  the 
city  comes  at  last  to  have  a  glamour.  Thus  Mahaffy  ^ 
writes  of  the  Hellenistic  period:  "The  brilliancy  of  city 
life,  the  comforts  and  conveniences  with  which  the  citizens 
became  supplied,  the  privileges  which  they  obtained, 
gave  to  all  this  epoch  of  men  a  strong  tendency  to  migrate 
from  the  country  into  the  towns.  So  it  was  that  to  live 
in  villages  like  the  Pagani  of  the  Romans,  came  to  suggest 
boorishness  and   want  of  refinement.     In   the   book  of 

'  "The  Progress  of  Hellenism  in  Alexander's  Empire,"  122. 


RADIANT  POINTS   OF   CONVENTIONALITY       183 

Revelation,  which  concludes  our  New  Testament,  the 
ideal  of  the  future  is  no  longer  the  Elysian  Fields,  but 
the  New  Jerusalem  come  down  from  heaven,  a  city  with 
walls  and  gates  and  splendid  streets.  This  and  not 
fair  glades  and  trees  and  streams  was  the  conception  of 
the  highest  happiness  produced  by  average  Hellenism." 
Christianity  owes  much  to  city  prestige.  Its  Founder 
labored  on  the  countryside  and  amid  the  hamlets,  yet 
so  much  hinged  on  the  city  reaction  upon  his  work  that 
few  realize  that  Jesus  passed  but  a  few  days  in  Jerusalem. 
Paul  preached  in  the  cities,  and  Christianity  spread  from 
the  great  urban  centres  to  the  towns,  and  lastly  to  the 
country,  where  the  lowest  class  of  peasants  (pagani) 
dwelt.  Writes  Pliny  to  Trajan:  "This  contagious  evil 
has  spread  not  only  in  the  cities,  but  also  in  the  towns 
and  villages."  In  the  same  way  modern  socialism  is  of 
city  origin  and  propagation,  and  sometime,  perhaps, 
it  will  be  combated  by  city  capitalists  alarming,  organiz- 
ing, and  exploiting  the  conservatism  of  the  rural  districts 
and  of  rural  sections  like  the  South  and  the  far  West. 

The  city  as  fountainhead    of    initiative  and  examples  The  citizens 
is  well  described  by  Tarde  :'  "In  the  hypertrophy  of  great  f^^^'^^^^n- 
cities  and,  especially,  of  capitals,  where  oppressive  privi-  stitute  a 
leges  take  root  and  ramify,  while  the  last  traces  of  the  ^^^^J^  ^"'' 
privileges  of  the  past  are  jealously  effaced,  is  to  be  found 
the  kind  of  inequality  which  modern   life  creates  and 
which  it  finds  indispensable,  in  fact,  in  managing  and 
promoting  the  great  currents  of  its  industrial  production 
and  consumption,  i.e.,  of  imitation  on  an  immense  scale. 
The  course  of  a  Ganges  like  this  necessitated  a  Himalayas. 
Paris  is  the  Himalayas  of  France.     Paris  unquestionably 

*  "Laws  of  Imitations,"  226. 


1 84 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


Royal  pride 
may  sap  the 
country  to 
build  up  the 
capital 


The  deaden- 
ing of  the 
provinces  in 
monarchical 
France 


rules  more  royally  and  more  orientally  over  the  provinces 
than  the  court  ever  ruled  over  the  city.  Every  day  the 
telegraph  or  the  railroad  distributes  its  ready-made  ideas, 
wishes,  conversations,  revolutions,  its  ready-made  dresses 
and  furniture,  throughout  the  whole  of  France.  The  sug- 
gestive and  imperious  fascination  which  it  instantaneously 
exerts  over  this  vast  territory  is  so  profound,  so  complete, 
and  so  sustained,  that  it  no  longer  surprises  any  one.  .  .  . 
It  is  futile  for  the  city  laborer  to  consider  himself  a  demo- 
crat in  working  for  the  destruction  of  the  middle  classes; 
he  is  none  the  less  an  aristocrat  himself,  the  much  ad- 
mired and  much  envied  aristocrat  of  the  peasant.  The 
peasant  is  to  the  laborer  what  the  laborer  is  to  his  em- 
ployer." 

At  times  the  domination  of  the  city  over  the  rest  of 
society  has  been  wantonly  exaggerated.  The  policy 
of  monarchs  in  wringing  money  from  the  people  in  order 
to  beautify  and  aggrandize  the  capital,  as  well  as  the 
enforced  concentration  of  feudal  nobles  at  the  royal  court, 
deadened  the  country,  causing  the  life  of  the  province 
to  become   mean,   dwarfed,   servile,   and   apologetic. 

Taine  ^  portrays  how  the  concentration  policy  of  the 
French  kings  had  glorified  city  at  the  expense  of  country : 
"None  remain  in  the  provinces  except  the  poor  rural 
nobility;  to  live  there  one  must  be  behind  the  age,  dis- 
heartened or  in  exile.  The  king's  banishment  of  a 
seignior  to  his  estates  is  the  highest  disgrace ;  to  the  hu- 
miliation of  this  fall  is  added  the  insupportable  weight 
of  ennui.  The  finest  chateau  on  the  most  beautiful  site 
is  a  frightful  '  desert ' ;  nobody  is  seen  there  save  the 
grotesques  of  a  small  town  or  the  village  rustics.  'Exile 
■  *  "  The  Ancient  Regime,"  45-49. 


RADIANT   POINTS   OF   CONVENTIONALITY       185 

alone,'  says  Arthur  Young,  'forces  the  French  nobility 
to  do  what  the  English  prefer  to  do,  and  that  is  to  live 
on  their  estates  and  embellish  them.'  .  .  .  Court 
historians,  on  mentioning  a  ceremony,  repeatedly  state 
that  '  all  France  was  there ' ;  in  fact,  every  one  of  conse- 
quence in  France  is  there.  .  .  .  Paris  and  the  court  be- 
comes, accordingly,  the  necessary  sojourn  of  all  fine 
people.  In  such  a  situation  departure  begets  departure; 
the  more  a  province  is  forsaken  the  more  they  forsake  it. 
'There  is  not  in  the  kingdom,'  says  the  Marquis  of  Mira- 
beau,  'a  single  estate  of  any  size  of  which  the  proprietor 
is  not  in  Paris  and  who,  consequently,  neglects  his  build- 
ings and  chateaux.' "  "A  country  in  which  the  heart  ceases 
to  impel  the  blood  through  its  veins  presents  a  sombre 
aspect.  Arthur  Young,  who  travelled  over  France  be- 
tween 1787  and  1789,  is  surprised  to  find  at  once  such 
a  vital  centre  and  such  dead  extremities.  Between  Paris 
and  Versailles  the  double  file  of  vehicles  going  and  coming 
extends  uninterruptedly  for  five  leagues  from  morning 
until  night.  The  contrast  on  other  roads  is  very  great. 
Leaving  Paris  by  the  Orleans  road,  says  Arthur  Young, 
'we  met  not  one  stage  or  diligence  for  ten  miles;  only 
two  messageries  and  very  few  chaises,  not  a  tenth  of  what 
would  have  been  met  had  we  been  leaving  London  at  the 
same  hour.'  On  the  highroad  near  Narbonne,  'for 
thirty-six  miles,'  he  says,  'I  came  across  but  one  cabriolet, 
half  a  dozen  carts  and  a  few  women  leading  asses.' 
Throughout  this  country  the  inns  are  execrable.  ...  It 
is  only  in  very  large  towns  that  there  is  any  civilization  and 
comfort.  At  Nantes  there  is  a  superb  theatre  'twice  as 
large  as  Drury  Lane  and  five  times  as  magnificent.  Mon 
Dieu!  I  cried  to  myself,  do  all  these  wastes,  the  deserts, 


i86  SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

the  heath,  ling,  furze,  broom,  and  bog  that  I  have  passed 
for   three   hundred   miles   lead   to   this   spectacle?    You 
pass    at    once    from   beggary    to  profusion.'  .  .  .     Paris 
magistrates  in  exile  at  Bourges  in  1753  and  1754  give  the 
following  picture  of  that  place :  '  A  town  in  which  no  one 
can  be  found,  with  whom  you  can  talk  at  your  ease  on  any 
topic   whatever,    reasonably  or  sensibly;    nobles,  three- 
fourths  of  them  dying  of  hunger,  rotting  with  pride  of 
birth,  keeping  apart  from  men  of  the  robe  and  finance, 
and  finding  it  strange  that  the  daughter  of  a  tax-collector, 
married  to  a  councillor  of  the  parliament  of  Paris,  should 
presume  to  be  intelligent  and  entertain  company ;  citizens 
of  the  grossest  ignorance,  the  sole  support  of  this  species 
of  lethargy  in  which  the  minds  of  most  of  the  inhabitants 
are  plunged.'  .  .  .     Says  Arthur  Young:  'At  Claremont, 
I  dined  or   supped  five  times   at   the   table  d'hote   with 
from  twenty  to  thirty  merchants,  tradesmen,  officers,  etc., 
and  it  is  not  easy  for  me  to  express  the  insignificance,  — 
the  inanity  of  their  conversation.     Scarcely  any  politics 
at  a  moment  when  every  bosom  ought  to  beat  with  none 
but  political  sensations.     The~  ignorance  or  the  stupidity 
of  these  people  must  be  absolutely  incredible ;  not  a  week 
passes  without  their  country  abounding  with  events  that 
are  analyzed  and  debated  by  the  carpenters  and  black- 
smiths of  England.'     The  cause  of  this  inertia  is  manifest ; 
interrogated  on  their  opinions,  all  reply,  'We  are  of  the 
provinces  and  we  must  wait  to  know  what  is  going  on  in 
Paris.'"     "The    provinces    form    an    immense    stagnant 
pond."     "Such  is  the  languor  or,  rather,  the  prostration, 
into  which  local  life  falls  when  the  local  chiefs  deprive 
it  of  their  presence,  action,  or  sympathy." 

Such  wilful  subordination  of  country  to  city  and  of 


RADIANT   POINTS   OF   CONVENTIONALITY       187 

provinces  to  capital  is  vicious.  It  causes  a  dying  of  the  The  revival 
extremities.  In  every  society  there  ought  to  be  a  number  ^^^^^^^ 
of  vigorous  local  centres,  tenacious  of  what  is  best  in  their 
past  and  proud  of  their  distinctive  characteristics.  The 
"Cehic  Revival"  inspires  in  the  gifted  Irish  a  fire  and 
spirit  they  would  never  have  if  they  looked  for  no  success 
save  that  which  bears  the  London  stamp.  A  national 
festival  like  the  "Eistedfodd"  lifts  the  Welsh  people  far 
higher  than  they  would  rise  under  the  inspiration  of  Lon- 
don-made poetry  and  song.  Scotch  genius  owes  much 
to  a  literary  centre  like  Edinburgh,  and  it  is  untoward 
that  the  Scotch  are  beginning  to  distrust  Edinburgh 
judgments  as  "provincial."  Paris-ridden  France  is  seek- 
ing to  revive  her  oudying  centres  by  planting  and  strength- 
ening provincial  universities.  The  nationalist  movements 
in  central  and  eastern  Europe  —  Finnic,  Lettish,  Polish, 
Magyar,  Czechish  —  represent  not  only  the  revival  of 
submerged  peoples,  but  also  the  resuscitation  of  ancient 
towns  reduced  to  provincial  pettiness  by  the  insolent 
domination  of  a  dynasty-made  metropolis  like  Vienna, 
St.  Petersburg,  or  Berlin. 

In  America  there  prevails  among  the  people  a  feeling  what  gives 
that  somehow  the  city  gives  a  higher  rank  than  the  country.  g^^^^J^'J^^''" 
Among  the  farmers  one  hears  such  expressions  as:  "I 
wonder  how  they  like  coming  down  to  living  in  the  country, 
after  being  city  folks?"  "The  farm  will  be  quite  a  come- 
down to  him !"  "Oh,  she  feels  big  now  that  she  is  a  city 
lady!"  What  a  triumphal  march  the  city  girl  enjoys 
in  the  little  village!  What  a  sensation  the  city  beau 
creates  among  the  rural  beauties !  This  halo  is  attribu- 
table to  the  splendor  of  urban  existence,  to  the  apparent 
affluence  and  high  social  standing  of  city  dwellers  in  con- 


i88 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


The  limits 
to  metro- 
politan 
leadership 


sequence  of  their  conspicuous  consumption  and  conspic- 
uous leisure,  to  the  polished  manners  of  the  urbanite, 
to  the  fact  that  all  the  extremely  rich  are  in  the  city. 
Here  the  great  and  famous  are  gathered;  here  are  the 
libraries,  the  works  of  art,  and  the  higher  institutions  of 
learning.  City  work  seems  superior;  though  it  cannot 
all  be  dignified  as  brain-work,  it  is  at  least  semi-profes- 
sional, clerical,  light  hand  work,  highly  skilled,  or  has 
an  artistic  side ;  at  any  rate  the  greater  part  is  not  ordinary 
manual  labor.  On  the  other  hand,  farm  work  is  manual, 
toilsome,  dirty,  and  to  it  a  stigma  still  clings.  The  car- 
toons and  gibes  of  a  jeering  metropolitan  press  against 
the  "hayseed"  and  the  uncomplimentary  allusions  of 
print  in  general  still  more  emphasize  this  notion  of  urban 
superiority.  The  consequence  is  that  country  youth 
imagine  they  rise  in  life  by  becoming  city  residents. 
Especially  does  this  city  prestige  tend  to  hold  people  in 
the  cities,  even  when  economic  conditions  are  more  favor- 
able  in   the   country. 

Happily,  however,  cities  are  not  pace-setters  in  every- 
thing. In  matters  of  fancy,  taste,  and  caprice  New  York, 
it  is  true,  leads  the  country.  Foreign  artists,  singers, 
actors,  musicians,  and  lecturers  make  their  debut  there, 
and  the  verdict  of  the  metropolitan  critics  gives  the  cue 
to  the  rest  of  the  country.  Books,  plays,  and  operas  are 
launched  in  New  York.  Most  of  the  periodical  literature 
is  edited  there.  Metropolitan  fashions,  amusements, 
pastimes,  drinks,  topical  songs,  books,  and  magazines 
enjoy  everywhere  the  right  of  way.  But,  in  matters  of 
interest  and  reason,  prestige  alone  can  confer  no  such 
leadership.  New  York's  financial  policy,  political  bias, 
municipal    projects,  or    commercial    standards    are    not 


RADIANT   POINTS   OF   CONVENTIONALITY       189 

accepted  forthwith  as  models  by  the  American  people. 
The  discoveries  of  her  scientists,  the  mechanisms  of  her 
inventors,  the  reasoning  of  her  theologians,  the  opera- 
tions of  her  surgeons,  the  decisions  of  her  judges,  the 
methods  of  her  educators,  the  regime  of  her  sanatoriums, 
do  not  instantly  become  patterns  for  the  country  at  large, 
because  here  reason  and  criticism  have  full  play.  We 
have  seen  public  attention  arrested  by  an  educational 
innovation  at  Quincy,  Massachusetts,  the  therapeutic 
methods  at  Battle  Creek,  Michigan,  the  welfare  work 
at  Dayton,  Ohio,  the  industrial  ?nodus  vivendi  at  Leclaire, 
Illinois,  the  cooperative  successes  of  Greeley,  Colorado, 
the  adjustment  of  church  and  public  school  at  Stillwater, 
Minnesota,  the  plan  of  city  government  at  Galveston, 
Texas,  the  legislative  reference  bureau  at  Madison,  Wis- 
consin. This  willingness  to  take  light  from  any  quarter 
in  the  serious  affairs  of  life  indicates  that  Americans 
are  far  from  succumbing  to  the  baleful  spell  of  a  glitter- 
ing metropolis  that  pulls  local  communities  out  of  their 
true  orbit  to  make  them  mere  satellites. 

In  democracies  majorities  are  imitated. 

No  one  has  accounted  for  this  so  well  as  De  Tocqueville :  ^  The  author- 
"When  the  ranks  of  society  are  unequal,  and  men  unlike  'tyof  the 

greater 

each  other  in  condition,  there  are  some  individuals  wield-  number 
ing  the  power  of  superior  intelligence,  learning,  and 
enlightenment,  whilst  the  multitude  are  sunk  in  ignorance 
and  prejudice.  Men  living  at  these  aristocratic  periods 
are  therefore  naturally  induced  to  shape  their  opinions 
by  the  standard  of  a  superior  person,  or  superior  class  of 
persons,  whilst  they  are  averse  to  recognize  the  infalli- 
bility of  the  mass  of  the  people. 

'  "  Democracy  in  America,"  II,  ch.  II. 


I  go 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


Among 
equals  the 
majority 
has  prestige 


Pressure  of 
the  minds 
of  all  upon 
the  reason 
of  each 


"  The  contrary  takes  place  in  ages  of  equality.  The 
nearer  the  people  are  drawn  to  tHe  common  level  of  an 
equal  and  similar  condition,  the  less  prone  does  each 
man  become  to  place  implicit  faith  in  a  certain  man  or 
a  certain  class  of  men.  But  his  readiness  to  believe  the 
multitude  increases,  and  opinion  is  more  than  ever  mis- 
tress of  the  world.  Not  only  is  common  opinion  the 
only  guide  which  private  judgment  retains  amongst  a 
democratic  people,  but  amongst  such  a  people  it  possesses 
a  power  infinitely  beyond  what  it  has  elsewhere.  At 
periods  of  equality,  men  have  no  faith  in  one  another, 
by  reason  of  their  common  resemblance;  but  this  very 
resemblance  gives  them  almost  unbounded  confidence 
in  the  judgment  of  the  public,  for  it  would  not  seem 
probable,  as  they  are  all  endowed  with  equal  means  of 
judging,  but  that  the  greater  truth  should  go  with  the 
greater   number. 

"  When  the  inhabitant  of  a  democratic  country  compares 
himself  individually  with  all  those  about  him,  he  feels 
with  pride  that  he  is  the  equal  of  any  one  of  them ;  but  when 
he  comes  to  survey  the  totality  of  his  fellows,  and  to  place 
himself  in  contrast  with  so  huge  a  body,  he  is  instantly 
overwhelmed  by  the  sense  of  his  own  insignificance  and 
weakness.  The  same  equality  which  renders  him  in- 
dependent of  each  of  his  fellow-citizens,  taken  severally, 
exposes  him  alone  and  unprotected  to  the  influence  of 
the  greater  number.  The  public  has  therefore,  among 
a  democratic  people,  a  singular  power,  which  aristocratic 
nations  cannot  conceive  of;  for  it  does  not  persuade  to 
certain  opinions,  but  it  enforces  them,  and  infuses  them 
into  the  intellect  by  a  sort  of  enormous  pressure  of  the 
minds  of  all  upon  the  reason  of  each." 


RADIANT   POINTS    OF   CONVENTIONALITY       191 

To  this  prestige  of  vast  numbers  Bryce  ^  has  given  a 
name :  — 

"  Out  of  the  mingled  feelings  that  the  multitude  will  The  fatalism 
prevail,  and  that  the  multitude,  because  it  will  prevail,  tude^°^^*'" 
must  be  right,  there  grows  a  self-distrust,  a  despondency, 
a  disposition  to  fall  into  line,  to  acquiesce  in  the  dominant 
opinion,  to  submit  thought  as  well  as  action  to  the  encom- 
passing power  of  numbers.  Now  and  then  a  resolute 
man  will,  like  Athanasius,  stand  alone  against  the  world. 
But  such  a  man  must  have,  like  Athanasius,  some  special 
spring  of  inward  strength."  "This  tendency  to  acquies- 
cence and  submission,  this  sense  of  the  insignificance  of 
individual  effort,  this  belief  that  the  affairs  of  men  are 
swayed  by  large  forces  whose  movement  may  be  studied 
but  cannot  be  turned,  I  have  ventured  to  call  the  Fatalism 
of  the  Multitude.  It  is  often  confounded  with  the  tyranny 
of  the  majority,  but  is  at  bottom  different,  though,  of 
course,  its  existence  makes  tyranny  by  the  majority  easier 
and  more  complete."  "In  the  fatalism  of  the  multitude 
there  is  neither  legal  nor  moral  compulsion;  there  is 
merely  a  loss  of  resisting  power,  a  diminished  sense  of 
personal  responsibility  and  of  the  duty  to  battle  for  one's 
own  opinions,  such  as  has  been  bred  in  some  peoples 
by  the  belief  in  an  overmastering  fate.  It  is  true  that  the 
force  to  which  the  citizen  of  the  vast  democracy  submits 
is  a  moral  force,  not  that  of  an  unapproachable  Allah, 
nor  of  the  unchangeable  laws  of  matter.  But  it  is  a  moral 
force  acting  on  so  vast  a  scale,  and  from  causes  often  so 
obscure,  that  its  effect  on  the  mind  of  the  individual  may 
well  be  compared  with  that  which  religious  or  scientific 
fatalism  creates." 

1 "  The  American  Commonwealth,"  II,  ch.  LXXXIV.  ^ 


192 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


The  elite 
alone  should 
lead 


The  de- 
mocracy of 
to-day  heeds 
the  elite 


Some  argue  that  democracy  means  the  ascendency 
of  majorities  not  in  government  alone,  but  in  all  spheres 
of  opinion  and  feeling;  that,  while  it  lifts  up  the  many, 
it  saps  the  independence  and  self-confidence  of  the  ex- 
ceptional man;  that  by  discrediting,  even  overawing 
and  silencing,  the  elite  few,  it  condemns  society  at  last 
to  conformity,  mediocrity,  and  stagnation.  This  indict- 
ment, were  it  true,  would  be  crushing,  for  in  a  highly 
dynamic  society  unguided  majorities  are  apt  to  be  wrong. 
Save  in  matters  of  immediate  and  general  personal  ex- 
perience, as,  for  example,  family  relations,  sex  relations, 
etc.,  the  profoundest  truths,  the  highest  ideals,  the  best 
standards,  will  first  appear  in  an  elite  minority.  Just 
as  the  lofty  peaks  catch  the  dawn  long  before  its  light 
can  flood  the  plain,  so,  in  an  advancing  society,  there  will 
be,  in  the  earlier  stages  of  every  discussion,  a  minority 
that  is  nearer  right  than  any  majority.  This  is  not  to 
say  that  in  any  particular  division  of  opinion  the  smaller 
number  is  more  likely  to  be  right  than  the  greater.  The 
presumption  is  with  it  only  when  it  includes  the  elite. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  modern  democracy, 
while  it  spurns  privileged  orders  and  authoritative  direc- 
tion, does  not  undervalue  the  proven  worthiest  or  refuse 
their  guidance.  Unheeding  the  sham  tinsel  elite,  it 
reveres  and  hearkens  to  the  genuine,  the  tested  elite. 
It  was  the  poor  benighted  Demos  before  the  days  of  the 
press,  the  public  school,  the  voluntary  association,  and 
a  margin  of  leisure,  that  followed  the  leader  who  would 
echo  its  delusions  and  prejudices.  In  America  the  plain 
people  have  a  great  respect  for  those  of  exceptional  achieve- 
ment, and  confidence  in  the  expert  is  rapidly  growing. 

So  ingrained  is  imitation  of  those  above  us  in  the  social 


RADIANT   POINTS   OF   CONVENTIONALITY       193 

hierarchy  that  even  the  idea  and  practice  of  social  equality  Social  equal- 
which   undermined  the  prestige  of   the  old  social  classes  |'y  f^^^^^^"^ 

r  o  in  the  upper 

owed  much  to  the  example  of  these  same  classes.     Says  class  and 

Tarde:^     "Everything,    even   progress   toward   equality,  socki^rvity 

is  effected  by  imitation  and  by  the  imitation  of  superior 

classes.     Before    political    and    social    equality    between 

all  classes  of  society  was  possible  or  even  conceivable,  it 

had  to  be  established  on  a  small  scale  in  one  of  them. 

Now,  it  was  first  seen  to  occur  on  top.      From  Louis  XI 

to  Louis  XVI  the  different  grades  of  nobility  which  had 

formerly,  in  the  time  of  great  vassals  and  of  pure  feudalism, 

been  separated  by  such  impassable  distances  were  steadily 

levelled,  and,  thanks  to  the  crushing  prestige  of  royalty 

and  to  the  comparative  multiplicity  of  points  of  contact 

between  all  men  of  gentle  birth,  fusion  was  brought  about 

between  the  nobility  of  the  sword  and  the  nobility  of  the 

gown.     Now,  strange  to  say,  while  this  levelling  was  being 

accomplished   on  top,   the  innumerable   sections  of  the 

middle  classes  and  the  common  people  continued  to  hold 

aloof  from  one  another  with  even  intensified  class  vanity 

up  to  the  eve  of  '89.     Read  in  De  Tocqueville,  for  example, 

the  enumeration  of  the  different  grades  of  upper,  middle, 

and  lower  bourgeoisie  in  a  town  of  the  old  regime  of  this 

date.     There   was    certainly    more   antagonism   between 

the  consuls  and  the  petty  merchants  of  the  eighteenth 

century  than  between  those  of  the  Middle  Ages.     The 

seeming  paradox  may  therefore  be  safely  advanced  that 

the  real  preparatory  work  in  behalf  of  modern  equality 

was  carried  on  in  the  past,  not  by  the  middle  classes, 

but  by  the  nobility." 

A  curious  confirmation  of  Tarde's  paradox  is  furnished 
*  "Laws  of  Imitations,"  230-231. 


194  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

by  Mahan  *  in  explaining  that  laxity  of  discipline  in  the 
old  aristocratic  French  navy  which  so  often  led  to  disaster. 
"This  class  feeling  carried  with  it  a  curious  sentiment 
of  equality  among  officers  of  very  different  grades,  which 
injuriously  affected  the  spirit  of  subordination.  Members, 
all,  of  a  privileged  order,  their  equality  as  such  was  more 
clearly  recognized  than  their  inequality  as  junior  and 
senior."  "Disputes,  arguments,  suggestions,  between 
two  gentlemen  forgetful  of  their  relative  rank,  would 
break  out  at  critical  moments,  and  the  feeling  of  equality, 
which  wild  democratic  ideas  spread  throughout  the  fleets 
of  the  republic,  was  curiously  forestalled  by  that  ex- 
isting among  the  members  of  a  most  haughty  aristocracy." 

SUMMARY 

The  city  is  fed  constantly  with  superior  immigrants  in  the  active 
period,  who  reciprocally  emancipate  and  stimulate  one  another. 

Wherever  they  may  have  originated,  most  cultural  treasures  find 
their  way  to  the  general  population  by  way  of  the  city. 

Owing  to  the  civilization  it  contributes  or  communicates,  a  pre- 
sumption of  superiority  comes  at  last  to  attach  to  everything  urban. 

The  splendor  of  visible  consumption  in  the  city,  and  the  more 
attractive  aspect  of  its  work,  lend  the  city  a  glamour. 

The  undue  prestige  of  a  metropolis  may  oppress  and  dwarf  local 
life. 

In  a  healthy  society  the  prestige  of  the  city  will  not  be  so  overshad- 
owing but  that  a  good  thing  launched  at  any  obscure  point  will 
speedily  make  its  way. 

When  ideas  of  social  equality  prevail,  the  majority  has  prestige 
and  is  imitated. 

A  society  may  be  democratic  without  repudiating  the  leadership 
of  the  genuine  elite. 

^  "  Influence  of  Sea  Power  on  History,"  332. 


RADIANT   POINTS   OF   CONVENTIONALITY       195 

EXERCISES 

1.  What  was  the  origin  of  the  social  prestige  that  in  England 
attaches  to  the  ownership  of  an  estate? 

2.  What  efifect  does  it  have  upon  the  balance  of  power  between 
country  and  city? 

3.  Explain  why  in  the  country  birth,  in  the  city  wealth,  is  the 
chief  basis  of  social  rating. 

4.  Where  should  a  college  be  located  —  in  the  city  or  in  the 
small  town? 

5.  Should  the  capital  of  a  commonwealth  be  its  chief  city,  or 
some  centrally  located  town  ? 

6.  Show  that  an  aristocracy  is  never  identical  with  the  ^lite. 

7.  Compare  the  pecuniary  burden  on  society  of  an  aristocracy 
and  an  ^lite. 

8.  What  social  policies  tend  to  discover  the  true  ^lite,  and  throw 
the  leadership  of  society  into  their  hands? 


CHAPTER  XII 


CUSTOM   IMITATION 


Custom  is 
down  imi- 
tation 


Contrast  of 
custom  and 
conven- 
tionality 


By  custom  is  meant  the  transmission  of  a  way  of  doing; 
by  tradition  is  meant  the  transmission  of  a  way  of  think- 
ing or  believing.  In  this  work,  however,  the  former  term 
will  be  used  in  a  wider  sense  as  any  transmission  of  psychic 
elements  from  one  generation  to  another.  Custom  imita- 
tion and  conventionality  imitation  are  sharply  distinct 
from  each  other.  One  is  a  borrowing  from  ancestors  or 
forerunners,  the  other  from  contemporaries.  If  we  figure 
the  life  of  society  as  a  flowing  stream,  then  we  think  of 
the  one  as  down  imitation,  the  other  as  cross  imitation. 
To  be  sure,  the  same  practice  may  be  at  one  stage  a  con- 
ventionality, at  a  later  stage  a  custom.  When  it  radiates 
out  from  some  point  in  society,  spreading  in  virtue  of  the 
prestige  of  its  source,  it  is  a  conventionality.  When,  after 
making  such  conquest,  it  comes  to  be  transmitted  from 
father  to  son  in  virtue  of  the  prestige  the  old  have  in  the 
eyes  of  the  young,  it  has  become  a  custom. 

When  we  imitate  a  contemporary,  we  are  obliged  usually 
to  surrender  some  rooted  practice  or  belief.  Our  imita- 
tion is  a  substitution,  and  has,  therefore,  to  overcome  the 
force  of  habit.  The  Occidentalizing  yesterday  of  the 
Japanese,  to-day  of  the  Chinese,  involves  a  jungle-clear- 
ing, a  tearing  up  of  vast  psychic  growths  that  could  never 
occur  save  in  consequence  of  events  which  make  a  pro- 
found   impression   on    minds.     Nothing   less   than   war, 

196 


CUSTOM   IMITATION  197 

disaster,  invasion,  or  civil  strife  can  shatter  for  whole 
populations  the  matrix  in  which  customs  He  imbedded. 
On  the  other  hand,  parents  set  us  copy  as  infants  when  our 
minds  are  blank,  our  habits  unformed;  when  we  lack  all 
means  of  test  or  canons  of  criticism;  when  their  example 
and  dogmas  do  not  contradict  anything  already  estab- 
lished in  the  mind.  The  tabula  rasa  of  childhood  makes 
early  imitation  an  acquisition  rather  than  a  substitution. 
Moreover,  as  between  adults,  imitation  marks  the  out- 
come of  a  spiritual  struggle.  Groups,  classes,  races,  in 
their  primary  social  contact,  virtually  face  the  question, 
"Shall  I  fascinate  you  with  my  way,  or  will  you  fasci- 
nate me  with  your  way?"  The  power  of  one  to  sway 
the  other  is  measured  by  the  excess  of  its  action  over  the 
reaction  of  the  other.  Sometimes  the  intellectual  struggle 
is  a  draw,  and  neither  influences  the  other  or  else  each 
borrows  from  the  other  in  a  rational  way.  But,  as  between 
parents  and  children,  the  inequality  is  so  great  that  the 
latter  are  rarely  ever  able  to  offer  any  effective  resistance. 
Hence,  the  ascendency  of  the  parents  is  almost  unlimited. 

It  is  the  broad  overlap  of  generations  in  the  human  Association 
species    that    makes    possible    transmission    by    custom.   necessary"to 
When,  as  in  the  lower  species,  the  young  are  so  well  custom 
equipped  with  strength  and  instincts  that  they  can  take 
care  of  themselves  from  the  moment  they  are  hatched  or 
born,  they  leave  the  parents  promptly  and  there  can  be 
no  imitation  of  the  elders.     What  the  parent  transmits  is 
instinct,  not  custom,  and  this  by  way  of  heredity,  not  by 
way  of  association.     In  the  human  species,  however,  the 
long  period  of  childhood  helplessness  insures  protracted 
plasticity,  i.e.,  an  ample    time  for  taking  in,  and  long 
association  with  the  parents,  in  the  course  of  which  their 


198 


SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 


Custom  and 

heredity. 

Analogies 


In  society  as 
well  as  in 
life  the  re- 
cent is  the 
variable 


knowledge,  practical  wisdom,  arts  of  life,  beliefs,  valua- 
tions, and  sentiments  are  copied  spontaneously,  even  un- 
consciously. 

In  organic  life  there  is  nothing  corresponding  to  con- 
ventionality imitation,  for  there  is  no  physiological  cross- 
transmission  among  the  birds  of  a  flock  or  the  wolves  of 
a  pack.  But  the  analogy  between  custom  imitation  and 
heredity  is  very  striking.  Both  are  modes  of  transmission, 
and  both  convey  mental  and  moral  characters  from  par- 
ents to  offspring. 

Just  as  acquired  characteristics  are  (probably)  trans- 
missible, so  the  practices  and  beliefs  received  from  the 
parents  are  liable  to  be  modified  in  the  lifetime  of  the 
individual,  and  to  be  passed  on  to  his  children  not  quite 
as  he  received  them.  The  variations  that  break  the  cur- 
rent of  heredity  can  be  compared  to  the  inventions  and 
discoveries  —  the  innovations  —  that  break  the  other- 
wise peaceful  descent  of  the  stream  of  tradition.  Just  as 
between  competing  structures  (gills  and  lungs),  or  com- 
peting characters  (fur  and  hibernation),  there  is  a  struggle 
for  existence  resulting  in  the  survival  of  the  better  adapted, 
so  between  conflicting  customs  there  is  an  eventual  adop- 
tion of  the  more  useful,  and  between  inconsistent  tradi- 
tions there  is  an  ultimate  acceptance  of  the  more  reasonable. 

The  longer  a  species  remains  in  an  unchanging  environ- 
ment, the  more  faithfully  does  heredity  transmit,  the 
rarer  is  "throw  back."  Thus  old  species  are  stable, 
while  varieties  and  hybrids  of  recent  origin  —  new  flowers 
or  vegetables,  fancy  poodles  or  pigeons  —  are  liable  not 
to  breed  true.  The  same  holds  for  practices  and  beliefs. 
The  longer  they  have  been  transmitted,  the  more  precise 
they  become  and  the  more  fearful  is  each  generation  of 


CUSTOM   IMITATION  199 

departing  from  them.  Just  as  the  remoter  ancestor  is  the 
bigger  god,  so  the  older  custom  has  more  prestige  and  is 
reproduced  with  the  greater  scrupulousness.  Thus  Bage- 
hot  observes :  ^  — 

"In  whatever  way  a  man  has  done  anything  once,  he 
has  a  tendency  to  do  it  again;  if  he  has  done  it  several 
times  he  has  a  great  tendency  so  to  do  it,  and  what  is  more, 
he  has  a  great  tendency  to  make  others  do  it  also.  He 
transmits  his  formed  customs  to  his  children  by  example 
and  by  teaching.  This  is  true  now  of  human  nature,  and 
will  always  be  true,  no  doubt.  But  what  is  peculiar  in 
early  societies  is  that  over  most  of  these  customs  there 
grows  sooner  or  later  a  semi-supernatural  sanction.  The 
whole  community  is  possessed  with  the  idea  that  if  the 
primal  usages  of  the  tribe  be  broken,  harm  unspeakable 
will  happen  in  ways  you  cannot  think  of,  and  from  sources 
you  cannot  imagine.  As  people  nowadays  believe  that 
'murder  will  out,'  and  that  great  crime  will  bring  even  an 
earthly  punishment,  so  in  early  times  people  believed  that 
for  any  breach  of  sacred  custom  certain  retribution  would 
follow.  To  this  day  many  semicivilized  races  have  great 
difficulty  in  regarding  any  arrangement  as  binding  and 
conclusive  unless  they  can  also  manage  to  look  at  it  as  an 
inherited  usage.  Sir  H.  Maine,  in  his  last  work,^  gives 
a  most  curious  case.  The  English  government  in  India 
has  in  many  cases  made  new  and  great  works  of  irriga- 
tion of  which  no  ancient  Indian  government  ever  thought ; 
and  it  has  generally  left  it  to  the  native  village  community 
to  say  what  share  each  man  of  the  village  should  have  in 
the  water;    and  the  village  authorities  have  accordingly 

'"Physics  and  Politics,"  141-143. 
^"Village  Communities,"  no. 


200 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


Custom 
much  more 
elastic  than 
heredity 


laid  down  a  series  of  most  minute  rules  about  it.  But 
the  peculiarity  is  that  in  no  case  do  these  rules  '  purport  to 
emanate  from  the  personal  authority  of  their  author  or 
authors;  .  .  .  nor  do  they  assume  to  be  dictated  by  a 
sense  of  equity;  there  is  always,  I  am  assured,  a  sort  of 
fiction  under  which  some  customs  as  to  the  distribution  of 
water  are  supposed  to  have  emanated  from  a  remote  an- 
tiquity; although,  in  fact,  no  such  artificial  supply  had 
ever  been  so  much  as  thought  of.'" 

But  there  are  differences  as  well  as  resemblances  between 
custom  and  heredity.  We  inherit  only  from  ancestors, 
but  in  childhood  we  imitate  the  one  salient  copy,  whether 
it  is  the  example  of  a  parent  or  of  another.  The  orphan, 
foundling,  or  foster-child  inherits  in  one  line  and  imitates 
in  another.  Again,  the  hold  of  custom  is  not  identical 
with  the  grip  of  childhood  impressions.  Among  nearly 
all  peoples  time  has  a  hallowing  power,  and  whatever  is 
immemorial  is  by  that  very  fact  clothed  with  prestige. 
Says  MacGahan  ^  of  the  annual  migrations  of  the  Kirghiz, 
a  people  who  roam  from  the  Oxus  to  the  Syr:  "To  any- 
body unacquainted  with  their  habits  of  life,  there  does  not 
seem  to  be  the  slightest  system  in  their  movements.  They 
have  a  system  nevertheless.  Every  tribe  and  every  aul 
follows  year  after  year  exactly  the  same  itinerary,  pur- 
suing the  same  paths,  stopping  at  the  same  wells  as  their 
ancestors  did  a  thousand  years  ago;  and  thus  many  auls 
whose  inhabitants  winter  together  are  hundreds  of  miles 
apart  in  the  summer.  The  regularity  and  exactitude  of 
their  movements  is  such  that  you  can  predict  to  a  day 
where,  in  a  circuit  of  several  hundred  miles,  any  aul  will 
be  at  any  season  of  the  year.  A  map  of  the  desert  show- 
^  "  Campaigning  on  the  Oxus,"  51. 


CUSTOM   IMITATION  201 

ing  all  the  routes  of  the  different  auls,  if  it  could  be  made, 
would  present  a  network  of  paths  meeting,  crossing,  inter- 
secting each  other  in  every  conceivable  direction,  form- 
ing apparently  a  most  inexplicable  entanglement  and  con- 
fusion. Yet  no  aul  ever  mistakes  its  own  way,  or  allows 
another  to  trespass  upon  its  itinerary.  One  aul  may  at 
any  point  cross  the  path  of  another,  but  it  is  not  allowed  to 
proceed  for  any  distance  upon  it.  Any  deviation  of  an  aul 
or  tribe  from  the  path  which  their  ancestors  have  trodden 
is  a  cause  for  war." 

"I  took  occasion  now  to  ask  my  friend  why  his  people 
did  not  stay  in  the  same  spot,  instead  of  continually  wander- 
ing from  place  to  place.  The  pasture,  he  said,  was  not 
sufficient  in  one  place  to  sustain  their  flocks  and  herds. 
'But  why  do  those  who  live  on  the  Syr  in  the  winter  not 
stay  there  in  the  summer,  where  the  pasture  is  good,  instead 
of  wandering  off  into  the  desert,  where  it  is  thin  and 
scarce?' I  asked.  *  Because  other  auls  come ;  and  if  they 
all  stayed,  they  would  soon  eat  it  all  bare.'  'But  why  do 
not  the  other  auls  stay  at  home  on  the  Amu  and  the  Irghiz, 
instead  of  coming?'  'Because  other  auls  come  there  too,' 
he  replied.  'But  why  do  not  they  all  stay  at  home?' 
'  Well,  our  fathers  never  did  so,  and  why  should  not  we  do 
as  they  have  always  done?'  he  replied.  And  I  suppose 
this  is  about  as  near  the  true  reason  of  their  migration  as 
any  other." 

There  is,   finally,   the  fact  that,   unlike  heredity,   the  Why  the 
power  of  custom  is  purely  psychical,  and  the  key  to  it  lies  ^^^^n  "^ 
in  our  mental  constitution.     When  for  some  time  we  have  paths  are 
been  refurnishing  our  minds  and  lives,  a  sudden  feeling  p^^^'^* 
of  self-alienation  takes  possession  of  us.     We  are  seized 
with  a  vertigo  like  that  which  attacks  one  on  the  verge  of 


202  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

an  abyss  or  one  crawling  along  an  underground  passage 
when  the  opening  narrows  and  the  earth  presses  upon  his 
shoulders.  This  spasm  of  horror,  as  elemental  as  the 
dread  of  the  dark  or  the  loathing  of  clammy  things,  in- 
spires a  frantic  desire  to  get  back  to  the  old,  not  because 
it  is  better  than  the  new,  but  because  only  then  can  we 
recover  ourselves,  experience  that  at-homeness  which  gives 
inward  peace.  Here,  no  doubt,  is  the  explanation  of  the 
reaction  that  usually  follows  upon  a  rapid  and  extensive 
abandonment  of  custom.  It  is  the  secret  of  the  backslid- 
ing of  native  Christians,  the  civilized  savage's  "going 
Fantee,"  and  the  revival  of  Voodooism  in  black  popula- 
tions. 
Conservative  To  this  instinctive  horror  of  the  totally  alien  and  un- 
ln^raitic°^  familiar  was  added  the  fear  inspired  by  the  animistic 
ideas  beliefs   that   dominate   early   man.     Jenks  ^    shows   how 

reasonable  it  once  was  to  follow  the  beaten  path. 

"One  of  the  strongest  characteristics  of  primitive  man 
is  his  fear  of  the  Unknown.  He  is  forever  dreading  that 
some  act  of  his  may  bring  down  upon  him  the  anger  of 
the  gods.  He  may  not  fear  his  fellow-man,  nor  the  beasts 
of  the  forest;  but  he  lives  in  perpetual  awe  of  those  un- 
seen powers  which,  from  time  to  time,  seem  bent  on  his 
destruction.  He  sows  his  corn  at  the  wrong  season;  he 
reaps  no  harvest,  the  offended  gods  have  destroyed  it  all. 
He  ventures  up  into  a  mountain,  and  is  caught  in  a  snow- 
drift. He  trusts  himself  to  a  raft  and  is  wrecked  by  a 
storm.  He  endeavors  to  propitiate  these  terrible  powers 
with  sacrifices  and  ceremonies;  but  they  will  not  always 
be  appeased.  There  are  terrors  above  him  and  around 
him. 

*  "Law  and  Politics  in  the  Middle  Ages,"  56-57. 


CUSTOM  IMITATION  203 

''From  this  state  of  fear,  custom  is  his  first  great  deliv- 
erer. .  .  .  What  has  been  done  once  in  safety,  may  pos- 
sibly be  done  again.  What  has  been  done  many  times, 
is  fairly  sure  to  be  safe.  A  new  departure  is  full  of 
dangers;  not  only  to  the  man  who  takes  it,  but  to  those 
with  whom  he  lives,  for  the  gods  are  apt  to  be  indiscrimi- 
nate in  their  anger.  Custom  is  the  one  sure  guide  to  law ; 
custom  is  that  part  of  law  which  has  been  discovered. 
Hence  the  reverence  of  primitive  society  for  custom; 
hence  their  terror  of  the  innovator.  Custom  is  the  earliest 
known  stage  of  law ;  it  is  not  enacted,  nor  even  declared : 
it  establishes  itself  as  the  result  of  experience." 

Although  animism  has  passed  away,  custom  still  sways  The  pseudo- 
men's  minds.     So  long  as  human  beings  are  so  lazy  and  s^nSon  of 
thinking  is  so  difficult,  reasons  will  never  be  lacking  for  custom 
attributing  the  higher  value  to  that  which  comes  to  us 
from  the  past.     We  are  told  to-day  that  the  old  has  by  that 
very   fact    given    signal    proof   of   vitality.     Its   survival 
demonstrates  its  fitness.     This  is  the  argument  of  the 
"historical  continuity"  school,  which  insists  that  the  pre- 
sumption is  in  favor  of  whatever  is  borne  to  us  on  the 
current  of  history.     This  consideration  it  was,  no  doubt, 
that  impelled  an  English  lord  chancellor  to  declare  that 
he  was  in  fevor  of  all  established  institutions,  and  in  favor 
of  them  because  they  were  established. 

The  student  of  society,  on  the  other  hand,  realizes  that  Why  the 
the  correct  inference  is  precisely  the  reverse.     Owing  to  f/^ia^st'"" 
forces  over  which  it  has  no  control  society  undergoes  in-  the  very  old 
cessant  change.     In  general,  the  longer  the  time  elapsed, 
the  greater  the  amount  of  change.     Other  things  being 
equal,  a  society  will  have  suffered  greater  transformation 
at  the  end  of  three  hundred  years  than  at  the  end  of  one 


204 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


Everything 
fluid  in 
society 
tends  to 
crystallize 


Growth  of 
definiteness 
in  language 


Increasing 
precision  in 
religious 
ritual 


hundred  years.  Hence,  the  older  an  institution,  practice,  or 
dogma,  the  more  hopelessly  out  of  adjustment  it  may  be 
presumed  to  be.  The  fitter  it  was  when  adopted,  the 
worse  misfit  to-day.  What  comes  to  us  from  our  grand- 
fathers may  suit  fairly  well  the  situation  to-day;  but  that 
which  spans  a  dozen  generations  is  little  likely  to  agree 
with  the  needs  of  our  time. 

In  consequence  of  the  cumulative  authority  of  custom, 
there  is  in  every  department  of  social  life  a  tendency 
toward  the  formation  of  an  etiquette  marking  the  ascen- 
dency of  the  dead  over  the  living,  and  the  triumph  of  con- 
formity over  individual  preference.  To  be  sure,  this 
tendency  may  be  counteracted  or  overborne  by  the  pres- 
ence of  factors  which  create  currents  of  transformation. 
Nevertheless,  the  tendency  is  there,  and  in  the  quieter 
reaches  of  social  life  it  declares  itself  unmistakably. 

Language,  once  so  variable  in  structure  and  significance, 
gets  in  time  its  grammar  and  its  dictionary,  i.e.,  the  petri- 
faction of  forms  and  meanings;  its  orthography,  i.e.,  the 
crystallization  of  spelling;  its  purist,  i.e.,  the  linguistic 
prude  who  abhors  "reliable,"  "jeopardize,"  "presiden- 
tial," and  condemns  the  use  of  the  passive  participle 
"was  being  built." 

The  mode  of  approach  to  the  divinity,  at  first  a  matter 
of  personal  discretion,  becomes  religious  ritual,  so  precise 
that  it  has  to  be  handed  over  to  priestly  experts.  Says 
Maspero^of  the  Egyptian  sacrifice :  "The  species,  hair, 
and  age  of  the  victim,  the  way  in  which  it  was  to  be  brought 
and  bound,  the  manner  and  details  of  its  slaughter,  the 
order  to  be  followed  in  opening  its  body  and  cutting  it  up, 
were    all    minutely    and    unchangeably    decreed.     And 

*"DaAmi  of  Civilization,"  124-125. 


CUSTOM  IMITATION  205 

these  were  but  the  least  of  the  divine  exactions,  and  those 
most  easily  satisfied.  The  formulas  accompanying  each 
act  of  the  sacrificial  priest  contained  a  certain  number  of 
words  whose  due  sequence  and  harmonies  might  not  suffer 
the  slightest  modification  whatever,  even  from  the  god 
himself,  under  penalty  of  losing  their  efficacy.  They 
were  always  recited  with  the  same  rhythm,  according  to 
a  system  of  melody  in  which  every  tone  had  its  virtue 
combined  with  movements  which  confirmed  the  sense  and 
worked  with  irresistible  effect:  one  false  note,  a  single 
discord  between  the  succession  of  gestures  and  the  utter- 
ance of  the  sacramental  words,  any  hesitation,  any  awk- 
wardness in  the  accomplishment  of  a  rite,  and  the  sacrifice 
was  vain.  ...  If  man  scrupulously  observed  the  innu- 
merable conditions  with  which  the  transfer  was  surrounded, 
the  god  could  not  escape  the  obligation  of  fulfilling  his 
petition ;  but  should  he  omit  the  least  of  them,  the  offering 
remained  with  the  temple  and  went  to  increase  the  en- 
dowments in  mortmain,  but  the  god  was  pledged  to  noth- 
ing in  exchange.  Hence  the  ofliciating  priest  assumed  a 
formidable  responsibility  as  regarded  his  fellows." 

In  like  manner,  the  spontaneity  of  the  early  Christians  And  in  reii- 
gives  way  in  time  to  differentiated  and  precise  exercises  g'o^s  dogma 
like  confessional,  mass,  Eucharist,  and  extreme  unction. 
Religious  belief,  at  first  extremely  individual,  combining 
agreement  on  a  few  central  doctrines  with  a  great  latitude 
of  opinion  on  all  other  points,  is  crystallized  into  creeds. 
Comparison  of  the  Apostles',  the  Nicene  and  the  Athana- 
sian  Creeds,  the  Tridentine  Profession  of  Faith,  the  Thirty- 
nine  Articles,  and  the  Westminster  Confession  of  Faith 
shows  a  short  and  simple  statement  of  belief  replaced  by 
statements  ever  more  full  and  explicit. 


2o6 


SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 


Constitu- 
tionalism 


The  anchy- 
losis of  law 


The  petri- 
faction of 
procedure 


In  the  state,  political  relations,  expressing  at  first  the 
application  of  common  sense  to  realities  and  practical 
needs,  get  more  and  more  tied  up  with  legalism.  The 
written  constitution  becomes  a  fetish  too  sacred  to  criticise 
or  amend;  and  it  can  be  fitted,  if  at  all,  to  the  changing 
needs  of  a  highly  dynamic  society  only  by  some  hocus- 
pocus  of  "interpretation." 

Law  stiffens  with  the  accumulation  of  precedent,  or  the 
growing  prestige  of  dead  commentators  —  a  Gaius  or  an 
Ulpian,  a  Coke  or  a  Blackstone.  Says  Amos:^  "So 
soon  as  a  system  of  law  becomes  reduced  to  completeness 
of  outward  form,  it  has  a  natural  tendency  to  crystallize 
into  a  rigidity  unsuited  to  the  free  applications  which  the 
actual  circumstances  of  human  life  demand.  The  in- 
variable reaction  against  this  stage  is  manifested  in  a 
progressive  extension,  modification,  or  complete  suspen- 
sion of  the  strict  legal  rule  into  which  the  once  merely 
equitable  principle  has  been  gradually  contracted." 
Equity  itself,  at  first  an  attempt  to  correct  the  mechanical 
operation  of  law  by  enlarging  the  sphere  of  judicial  discre- 
tion at  the  expense  of  technicality,  gets  bound  by  prece- 
dents, acquires  a  legal  shell,  and  becomes  merely  a 
competing  system  of  law  destined  in  the  end  to  complete 
absorption. 

Litigation  gets  so  involved  in  elaborate  procedure  that 
no  one  dares  trust  himself  to  it  without  the  guidance  of 
an  expert.  A  lawsuit,  originally  a  quest  for  truth  and 
justice,  becomes  a  regulated  contest  between  professionals, 
to  be  decided  according  to  the  rules  of  the  sport.  "The 
inquiry  is  not,  What  do  substantive  law  and  justice  re- 
quire?    Instead   the   inquiry   is.  Have   the  rules  of  the 

*  "Science  of  Law,"  57. 


CUSTOM   IMITATION  207 

game  been  carried  out  strictly?  If  any  material  infrac- 
tion is  discovered,  just  as  the  football  rules  put  back  the 
offending  team  five  or  ten  yards,  as  the  case  may  be,  our 
sporting  theory  of  justice  awards  new  trials,  or  reverses 
judgments,  or  sustains  demurrers  in  the  interest  of  regu- 
lar play."  ^ 

Administration  becomes  procedure  and  routine ;  and  The  apo- 
those  native  clerks  who  were  found  on  their  knees  in  a  j-edTape 
room  in  a  government  building  in  Calcutta,  adoring,  after 
the  immemorial  manner  of  the  Hindu  craftsman,  a  col- 
lection of  the  tools  of  their  craft  —  pens,  ink,  sealing- 
wax,  and  red  tape — would  find  co-worshippers  of  red  tape 
in  the  departments  of  every  government.  Le  Bon^  cites 
from  official  reports  the  case  of  the  French  chef  de  bataillon 
"who,  having  received  permission  to  have  made,  at  the 
Invalides,  a  pair  of  non-regimental  boots,  found  himself 
a  debtor  to  the  state  for  the  sum  of  7  fr.  80,  which  sum 
he  was  perfectly  willing  to  pay.  To  render  this  pay- 
ment regular  there  were  necessary  three  letters  from  the 
Minister  of  War,  one  from  the  Minister  of  Finances,  and 
fifteen  letters,  decisions,  or  reports  from  generals,  directors, 
chiefs  of  departments,  etc.,  at  the  head  of  the  various  ad- 
ministrative services!"  In  the  navy  "the  monthly  pay 
of  a  simple  lieutenant  comprises  a  collection  of  sixty-five 
different  items, '  all  provided  with  long  tails  of  decimals ! ' 
To  obtain,  in  a  seaport,  a  'sail-maker's  palm,'  a  piece  of 
leather  worth  a  penny,  it  is  necessary  to  make  out  a 
special  form,  for  which  one  must  explore  every  corner  of 
the  port  in  search  of  six  different  signatures.     When  once 

*  Paper  by  Professor  Roscoe   Pound,  Transactions  of  the  American 
Bar  Association  at  its  Twenty-ninth  Annual  Meeting. 
^  "The  Psychology  of  Socialism,"  176-177. 


2o8 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


The  formal- 
ization of 
instruction 


the  scrap  of  leather  is  obtained,  new  signatures  and  in- 
scriptions are  necessary  in  other  registers.  As  a  receipt 
for  certain  articles  pieces  of  accountant's  work  demand- 
ing fourteen  days'  labor  are  necessary.  The  number  of 
reports  docketed  by  certain  departments  is  reckoned  at 
100,000."  On  shipboard  are  found  "together  with 
thirty-three  volumes  of  regulations,  intended  to  deter- 
mine the  details  of  administrative  life  on  board,  a  list 
of  230  different  types  of  registers,  ledgers,  memoranda, 
weekly  and  monthly  reports,  certificates,  receipt  forms, 
journals,  fly-leaves,  etc." 

Fighting  becomes  smothered  in  military  tactics,  the 
army  from  a  national  weapon  becomes  a  toy  of  prince- 
lings, the  soldiers  come  to  exist  for  the  sake  of  the  parade, 
and  the  Archduke  Constantine  sounds  the  first  note  in  the 
"war  against  war"  by  voicing  the  naive  sentiment  "I  do 
not  like  war ;  it  spoils  the  soldiers,  dirties  their  uniforms, 
and  destroys  discipline." 

Education  comes  to  consist  in  traversing  a  rigid  cur- 
riculum fixed  by  conditions  long  since  passed  away,  or 
else  hardens  into  a  discipline  for  getting  people  through 
certain  examinations  —  the  "cram"  system.  The  pref- 
erence shown  the  ancient  languages  in  the  college  cur- 
riculum is  an  anachronism,  a  heritage  from  the  Renaissance 
when  Greek  and  Latin  were,  in  very  sooth,  the  great 
liberal  studies.  Says  Jules  Lemaitre  of  French  secondary 
education:  "Our  secondary  classical  instruction  remains 
at  root  what  it  was  under  the  old  regime."  "What  does 
this  mean?  Everything  is  altered;  the  discoveries  of 
applied  science  have  profoundly  modified  the  conditions 
of  life,  both  for  the  individual  and  the  nation;  have 
altered  even  the  face  of  the  earth.    The  universal  reign 


CUSTOM   IMITATION  209 

of  industry  and  commerce  has  begun ;  we  form  a  demo- 
cratic and  industrial  society,  already  menaced,  or  rather 
half  undermined,  by  the  competition  of  powerful  nations, 
and  the  children  of  our  petite  bourgeoisie,  and  many  chil- 
dren of  the  lower  classes,  spend  eight  years  in  learning 

—  very  badly  —  the  things  that  were  formerly  taught 
very  well,  by  the  Jesuit  Fathers,  in  a  monarchical  society, 
in  a  France  whose  supremacy  was  recognized  by  Europe, 
at  a  period  when  Latin  was  an  international  language,  to 
the  sons  of  the  nobles,  the  magistrates,  and  the  privileged 
classes." 

Respect   and   friendliness   are   expressed   in   forms  of  Ceremoni- 
politeness  which  eventuate  into  the  oppressive  court  cere-  °^^^^^ 
monial  of  Byzantium  or  China,  the  elaborate  etiquette  of 
the  Persians  or  the  Siamese,  the  punctilious  courtesy  of 
the  Burmans  or  the  Japanese.     In  church  architecture  a 
certain  type  —  Romanesque,  Gothic,  Renaissance,  Rococo 

—  gets  the  upper  hand  and  for  generations  rules  with  an 
ever  more  despotic  sway.  For  literature  there  springs  up 
a  Boileau,  a  Vo'^e,  01  an  Academie  Frangaise,  trammelling 
the  genius  of  the  artist  with  precise  rules. 

In  a  word,  there  is  in  every  segment  of  social  life  a  The  arrest 
tendency  to  form  a  "cake  of  custom"  which  may  become  of  P^sy^^* 

■'  •'  by  a  cake 

so  strong  that  it  cannot  be  broken  up  from  within.  This,  of  custom 
in  Bagehot's  opinion,  accounts  for  "the  whole  family  of 
arrested  civilizations.  A  large  part,  a  very  large  part,  of 
the  world  seems  to  be  ready  to  advance  to  something 
good  —  to  have  prepared  all  the  means  to  advance  to 
something  good  —  and  then  to  have  stopped,  and  not 
advanced.  India,  Japan,  China,  almost  every  sort  of 
Oriental  civilization,  though  diiTering  in  nearly  all  other 
things,  are  in  this  alike.     They  look  as  if  they  had  paused 


2IO 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


British  im- 
mobility 


American 
immobility 


when  there  was  no  reason  for  pausing  —  when  a  mere 
observer  from  without  would  say  that  they  were  likely 
not  to  pause."  Even  the  peoples  that  do  progress  suffer 
terribly  from  the  cake  of  custom  that  forms  so  quickly, 
yet  withal  so  quietly,  and  confines  them  ere  they  are  aware 
of  it. 

Says  Boutmy:^  "The  English  people  has  had  to  do 
violence  to  itself  in  order  to  achieve  the  greater  part  of 
that  material  progress  by  which  it  now  profits  with  its 
customary  practical  superiority.  It  began  by  regarding 
with  contempt,  anxiety,  and  sometimes  even  horror,  the 
most  innocent  and  useful  discoveries:  the  use  of  steam, 
the  submarine  telegraph,  the  Suez  Canal,  and  the  Uni- 
versal Exhibition,  the  postal  reform,  and  the  Channel 
tunnel.  With  greater  reason  organic  reforms  in  the 
government  have  always  been  treated  as  views  and  dan- 
gerous experiments  for  quite  a  long  time." 

Let  not  Americans  hug  fondly  the  delusion  that  they 
are  free  of  such  trammels.  Early  in  their  history  they 
did,  indeed,  for  a  time,  evince  a  daring  and  splendid 
spirit  of  innovation.  They  fitted  their  institutions  to  their 
needs  with  a  success  that  placed  them  in  the  van  of 
progress.  But  to-day  their  idolatry  of  an  undemocratic 
Federal  Constitution,  their  reverence  for  irresponsible 
power  in  the  form  of  an  "independent"  judiciary^  and 


i"The  English  People,"  121. 

^  In  England  the  king's  power  of  summary  removal  of  judges  placed 
the  courts  under  his  control,  and  made  it  possible  for  him  to  use  them  in 
oppressing  the  people.  To  make  them  independent  of  his  will  an  act 
was  passed,  in  1701,  providing  that  judges  should  be  removed  only  on  an 
Address  from  Parliament  to  the  Crown.  English  judges  have  always 
been  answerable  to  Parliament.  Yet  the  old  fight  on  their  behalf  re- 
sulted in  a  tradition  of  "independence"  which,  for  a  hundred  odd  years, 


CUSTOM   IMITATION  211 

their  veneration  of  a  common  law  at  variance  with  cer- 
tain needs  of  an  industrial  civilization  are  holding  them 
back.  In  the  march  of  peoples  they  must  not  only  yield 
the  banner  of  leadership  to  the  younger  societies  of  Aus- 
tralasia, but  they  ought,  perhaps,  to  fall  in  humbly  be- 
hind certain  little  peoples  of  old  Europe  —  the  Nor- 
wegians, the  Danes,  the  Swiss.  A  people  that  tolerates 
the  trammels  that  prevent  it  carrying  out  its  deliberate 
intention  to  protect  women  and  children  in  industry,  safe- 
guard the  health  of  workers,  regulate  the  conditions  of 
labor,  control  corporations,  fix  railway  rates,  or  operate 
public  utilities  must  suffer  from  a  growing  maladjust- 
ment of  its  laws  and  policies  to  its  needs.  Deference  for 
a  traditional  system  of  law  which  exhibits  too  great  a 
respect  for  the  individual  and  too  little  respect  for  the 
needs  of  society  when  they  come  into  conflict  with  the 
individual,  to  suit  it  to  the  present  age,  results  in  the  The  judicial 

following  decisions  grounded  on  "interference  with  the  veto  on  so- 
ciety's efiforts 
right  of  free  contract."     "Three  of  them  hold  eight-hour  to  adjust  it- 
laws  unconstitutional;    two  more  hold  statutes  limiting 
the  hours  of  labor  unconstitutional;    four  deny  effect  to 
statutes  fixing  the   periods  at  which   certain  classes  of 
laborers  shall  receive  their  wages;    another  passes  ad- 
versely on  a  statute  prohibiting  the  practice  of  fines  in 
cotton  mills ;  another  deals  in  the  same  way  with  a  statute 
prohibiting  corporations  from  deducting  from  the  wages 
of  employees  to  establish  hospital  and  relief  funds;  three 
overturn  acts  regulating  the  measuring  of  coal  for  the 

has  been  used  to  justify  the  American  practice  of  exalting  Federal  judges, 
by  means  of  life  tenure,  into  a  politically  irresponsible  body,  able  with 
impunity  to  thwart  the  will  of  the  people  as  expressed  in  laws,  by  declaring 
such  laws  "unconstitutional."  See  J.  A.  Smith,  "The  Spirit  of  American 
Government,"  ch.  V. 


self  to  new 
situations 


212  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

purpose  of  fixing  the  compensation  of  miners;    two  hold 
void  statutes  designed  to  prevent  the  payment  of  em- 
ployees in  store  orders;    another  passes  adversely  on  an 
act  requiring  laborers  on  public  contracts  to  be  paid  the 
prevailing  rate  of  wages ;    another  denies  effect  to  an  act 
requiring  railway  corporations  to  furnish  discharged  em- 
ployees a  statement  of  the  causes  of  their  removal ;  while 
another  decides  it  unconstitutional  to  prevent  employers 
from  prohibiting  their  employees  from  joining  unions  or 
from   retaining    membership    in    unions    to    which    they 
belong."  ^ 
The  judicial        The  Same  blind  deference  causes  the  people  to  allow 
othefthln      ^^^  administrative  agencies  they  create  for  the  purpose  of 
common  law  inspecting,  supervising,  regulating,  or  prosecuting,  to  be 
reme  les        overthrown  or  shackled  ^  in   a   time  when   common  law 
methods  of  protecting  the  citizen  in  his  rights  have  failed. 
Says  Professor  Pound :  ^    "From  the  beginning  the  main 

*  Roscoe  Pound,  "  The  Spirit  of  the  Common  Law,"  The  Green 
Bag,  Januar}',  1906. 

^  Says  Dr.  Smalley:  "The  gradual  growth  of  the  doctrine  of  judicial 
review  and  the  gradual  development  of  the  methods  employed  by  the 
courts,  have  gradually  paralyzed  the  state  railroad  commissions  by  destroy- 
ing their  will  as  well  as  their  power.  Under  the  burden  of  judicial  review, 
the  commissions  have  become  discouraged  from  the  task  of  rate  regula- 
tion; most  of  them  pay  relatively  slight  attention  to  the  matter  of  rates, 
confining  themselves  largely  to  the  other  and  much  less  important  duties 
imposed  upon  them.  Some  have  practically  desisted  from  rate-making. 
Some  esteem  their  duty  done  when  they  attempt  to  arbitrate  the  few 
cases  between  carrier  and  shipper  which  are  brought  to  their  attention, 
but  which  form  only  a  microscopical  part  of  the  great  question  of  rates. 
This  relaxation  of  effort,  this  growing  indifference  to  the  most  impor- 
tant of  all  their  functions,  has  been  conspicuous  in  recent  years,  and  is  a 
discouraging  feature  of  the  railroad  problem  of  to-day."  —  "Railroad 
Rate  Control,"  124,  Pubs,  of  the  Amer.  Econ.  Association. 

^  Transactions  of  the  American  Bar  Association  at  its  Twenty-ninth 
Annual  Meeting. 


CUSTOM   IMITATION  213 

reliance  of  our  common  law  system  has  been  individual 
initiative.  The  main  security  for  the  peace  at  Common 
Law  is  private  prosecution  of  offenders.  The  chief 
security  for  the  efficiency  and  honesty  of  public  officers 
is  mandamus  or  injunction  by  a  taxpayer  to  prevent  waste 
of  the  proceeds  of  taxation.  The  reliance  for  keep- 
ing public  service  companies  to  their  duty  in  treating  all 
alike  at  reasonable  price  is  an  action  to  recover  damages. 
Moreover,  the  individual  is  supposed  at  Common  Law  to 
be  able  to  look  out  for  himself  and  to  need  no  adminis- 
trative protection.  If  he  is  injured  through  contributory 
negligence,  no  theory  of  comparative  negligence  comes  to 
his  relief;  if  he  hires  as  an  employee,  he  assumes  the  risk 
of  the  employment;  if  he  buys  goods,  the  rule  is  caveat 
emptor.  In  our  modern  industrial  society,  this  whole 
scheme  of  individual  initiative  is  breaking  down.  Private 
prosecution  has  become  obsolete.  Mandamus  and  in- 
junction have  failed  to  prevent  rings  and  bosses  from 
plundering  public  funds.  Private  suits  against  carriers 
for  damages  have  proved  no  preventive  of  discrimination 
and  extortionate  rates.  The  doctrine  of  assumption  of 
risk  becomes  brutal  under  modern  conditions  of  employ- 
ment. An  action  for  damages  is  no  comfort  to  us  when 
we  are  sold  diseased  beef  or  poisonous  canned  goods.  At 
all  these  points,  and  they  are  points  of  everyday  contact 
with  the  most  vital  public  interests,  Common  Law  methods 
of  relief  have  failed." 

This  fatal  crusting  over  of  social  life  with  the  lapse  of  Why  new 
time  is  one  reason  why  new  societies  —  if  not  isolated  —  societies 

-^  strip  all 

are  apt  to  be  more  progressive  and  prosperous  than  old  others 
societies.     They  escape  many  of  the  customs  and  punc- 
tilios that  stifle  initiative  and  paralyze  effort.     Here,  in- 


societies  out- 


214  SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

deed,  is  the  secret  of  the  "Western"  spirit.     Thus  we 
read :  ^  — 
The  secret  "This  forcefulness  of  the  West  is  seen  in  all  forms  of 

"husUe"       social  life.     It  is  indicated  by  those  modes  of  business 
spirit  and  habits  of  action  so  familiarly  known  as  'hustling.' 

The  Western  man  is  bound  to  succeed  and  sticks  at  no 
obstacles.  A  few  years  since  the  people  of  a  certain 
religious  denomination  in  Minnesota  began  to  take  meas- 
ures for  the  organization  of  a  church  in  a  rising  suburb 
of  a  great  city;  but  the  management  was  in  the  hands  of 
an  Eastern  society,  and  plans  did  not  at  once  materialize 
in  deeds.  The  members  of  another  organization  not  radi- 
cally different  in  creed  learned  what  was  contemplated. 
There  was  room  at  the  time  for  not  more  than  one  church, 
and  whatever  one  was  the  first  to  start  was  quite  sure  to 
be  the  leading  one  when  the  suburb  should  become  popu- 
lous. Accordingly,  one  Sunday  afternoon,  about  two 
weeks  before  the  proposed  meeting  for  organization  under 
the  Eastern  society,  the  members  of  this  other  denomi- 
nation held  a  quiet  meeting  on  their  own  account.  They 
then  and  there  perfected  a  church  organization,  elected 
officers,  appointed  a  pastoral  committee  and  a  building 
committee,  and  adjourned.  The  next  day  the  building 
committee  bought  a  lot,  and  on  the  following  day  began 
the  erection  of  a  temporary  building.  Meanwhile  the 
pastoral  committee  telegraphed  a  call  to  a  young  clergy- 
man to  become  their  pastor;  he  accepted,  and  at  once 
took  a  train  for  his  new  field.  On  the  following  Sunday, 
one  week  from  the  time  of  the  original  meeting,  the  com- 
pleted building  was  dedicated  by  the  new  pastor.  The 
other  enterprise  was  abandoned.     The  church  so  rapidly 

*  Judson,  in  Shaler's  "  United  States  of  America,"  II,  311. 


CUSTOM   IMITATION  215 

put  in  form  has  to-day  a  fine  house  of  worship  and  a 
large  membership." 

SUMMARY 

The  great  rival  to  conventionality  is  custom. 

The  roots  of  custom  imitation  start  in  the  association  of  children 
with  parents. 

The  hallowing  influence  of  time  creates  an  irresistible  presump- 
tion of  superiority  in  favor  of  whatever  is  old. 

A  rapid  and  wide  departure  from  the  customary  and  famiUar 
produces  in  many  a  distressing  sense  of  self-alienation. 

Much  of  early  man's  fear  of  the  unknown  and  untried  was  due 
to  his  animistic  ideas. 

The  long-established  has  by  that  very  fact  shown  itself  workable ; 
but  there  is  a  strong  likelihood  that  it  has  lost  much  of  the  fitness  it 
once  had. 

There  is  a  tendency  for  the  transmitted  to  become  even  more 
definite  and  precise,  so  that  each  generation  is  confined  under  a 
thicker  and  tougher  cake  of  custom. 

The  bondage  of  the  living  to  the  dead  is  by  no  means  absent 
from  American  society. 

The  proverbial  energy  and  prosperity  of  new  communities  are 
due  largely  to  escape  from  the  burden  of  the  past. 

EXERCISE 

1.  What  are  your  feelings  when  you  have  a  sudden  reahzation  of 
having  drifted  far  from  the  beliefs,  ideals,  and  standards  of  your 
youth  ? 

2.  Has  acquaintance  with  the  scientific  view  of  life  and  society 
altered  your  feelings  in  such  a  case  ? 

3.  Does  wider  knowledge  of  the  diverse  traditions  and  customs  of 
other  peoples  make  you  more  cautious  and  provisional  in  your 
attitude  toward  your  own  beliefs  and  practices  ? 

4.  Are  ancient  precepts  about  the  conduct  of  life  worthier  of  our 
confidence  than  ancient  institutions  ? 

5.  What  is  it  chiefly  that  invalidates  ancient  religious  dogma  ? 


2i6  SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

Ancient  teachings  regarding  the  family  ?     Ancient  political  institu- 
tions ? 

6.  Show  that,  unless  it  can  be  easily  amended,  a  written  con- 
stitution, no  matter  how  perfect,  becomes  in  time  an  incubus. 

7.  Show  the  dangers  of  creating  perpetual  endowments  for  specific 
and  limited  charitable  uses. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

CONDITIONS   AFFECTING  THE   SWAY  OF  CUSTOM 

The  blind  adherence  to  custom  so  pronounced  through-  Fear  of  the 
out  the  patriarchal  stage  of  social  organization  ^  is  partly  fj^g^^j'^j^Jj 
due  to  fear  of  the  spirits  of  the  deceased  forefathers,  who  preserves 
naturally  would  resent  and  punish  any  departure  from 
their  favorite  beliefs  or  ways.     The  cult  of  the  dead  — 
ancestor  worship  —  is,  perhaps,  the  most  conservative  type 
of  religion,  and  much  was  gained  for  progress  when  nature 
gods  were  substituted  for  deified  ancestors  as  objects  of 
worship. 

What  is  received  becomes  fixed  by  self -imitation  (habit).  The  age  of 
and  so  becomes  more  obdurate  with  advancing  years,  f^riraders 
Hence,   other  things  being  equal,   society  will  be   con-  affects  the 
servative  or  progressive  according  as  it  puts  to  the  fore  ^o^^rd  the 
old  men  or  young  men.     The  installing  of  the  old  in  all  past 
places   of   authority   and   direction   as   surely  brings  on 
social  old  age  as  the  calcareous  deposit  in  the  walls  of 
the  arteries  brings  on  an  old-age  condition  of  the  body. 

^  Says  Jenks:  "The  desperate  tenacity  with  which  patriarchal  society 
clung  to  a  practice,  merely  because  it  was  a  practice,  is  illustrated  by 
the  well-known  Roman  custom  of  examining  the  entrails  of  victims  to 
ascertain  the  prospects  of  an  expedition.  Originally,  no  doubt,  it  was  a 
practical  expedient  adopted  by  the  nomad  tribes  from  which  the  Romans 
were  descended,  in  their  wanderings  through  unknown  country.  To  test 
the  fitness  for  food  of  the  new  herbs  with  which  they  came  into  contact, 
they  caused  a  few  of  their  cattle  and  sheep  to  eat  them,  and  then  by  sort 
of  rude  post-mortem,  Judged  of  the  result."  —  "History  of  Politics,"  41. 

217 


2i8  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

In  general,  it  is  young  men  who  provide  the  logic,  deci- 
sion, and  enthusiasm  necessary  to  relieve  society  of  the 
crushing  burden  that  each  generation  seeks  to  roll  upon 
the  shoulders  of  the  next.  The  Greeks  were  right  in 
accepting  Hesiod's  maxim,  "Work  for  youth,  counsel  for 
maturity,  prayers  for  old  age."  The  domination  of  gray- 
beards  is  equivalent  to  a  fatty  degeneration  of  the  social 
brain. ^     The  patriarchal  constitution  of  the  family  is  inim- 

^  His  first-hand  observation  of  the  incompetency  of  aged  English  gen- 
erals in  the  Boer  War  prompts  Kipling  derisively  to  put  into  the  mouths 
of  the  Old  Men  these  words :  — 

"We  shall  not  acknowledge  that  old  stars  fade  or  alien  planets  arise 
(That  the  sere  bush  buds  or  the  desert  blooms  or  the  ancient  well-head 

dries), 
Or  any  new  compass  wherewith  new  men  adventure  'neath  new  skies. 

"  We  shall  lift  up  the  ropes  that  constrained  our  youth  to  bind  on  our 

children's  hands; 
We  shall  call  to  the  water  below  the  bridges  to  return  and  replenish  our 

lands; 
We  shall  harness  horses  (Death's  own  pale  horses)  and  scholarly  plough 

the  sands. 

"We  shall  lie  down  in  the  eye  of  the  sun  for  lack  of  a  light  on  our  way  — 
We  shall  rise  up  when  the  day  is  done  and  chirrup,  'Behold,  it  is  day ! ' 
We  shall  abide  until  the  battle  is  won  ere  we  amble  into  the  fray. 

"  We  shall  peck  out  and  discuss  and  dissect,  and  evert  and  extrude  to  our 

mind. 
The  flaccid  tissues  of  long-dead  issues  offensive  to  God  and  mankind  — 
(Precisely  like  vultures  over  an  ox  that  the  Army  has  left  behind). 

"  The  Lamp  of  our  Youth  will  be  utterly  out:   but  we  shall  subsist  on  the 

smell  of  it, 
And  whatever  we  do,  we  shall  fold  our  hands  and  suck  our  gums  and 

think  well  of  it. 
Yes,  we  shall  be  perfectly  pleased  with  our  work,  and  that  is  the  perfect- 

est  Hell  of  it ! 


CONDITIONS  AFFECTING  SWAY   OF   CUSTOM      219 

ical  to  the  bright  ideas  of  young  men,  and  it  was  a  red- 
letter  day  for  progress  when  the  lad  became  his  own 
master  the  moment  he  could  wield  the  arms  of  the  warrior. 
The  committing  of  government  first  to  the  elders  of  the 
tribe,  later  to  gerontes  and  senaiores,  the  very  name  indi- 
cating the  graybeard,  threw  it  into  a  rut  from  which  only 
warfare,  bringing  young  men  to  the  front,  could  lift  it. 
In  China,  when  a  man  gets  to  be  sixty  years  old  he  begins 
to  become  a  leader,  and  the  older  he  grows,  the  more  he  is 
honored.  A  Chinaman  confesses,  "I  approached  my 
grandfather  with  awe,  my  father  and  mother  with  venera- 
tion, and  my  elder  brother  with  respect."  Thanks  to  this 
gerontolairy,  the  power  of  government  is  lodged  to  a  large 
degree  in  the  hands  of  the  aged.  "  Only  the  lower  official 
ranks  are  usually  reached  in  middle  life,  and  it  is  not 
until  the  best  powers  of  body  and  mind  have  begun  to 
weaken  that  the  highest  places  of  honor  and  responsibility 
are  secured.  The  confusion  in  government  can  often  be 
traced  to  the  palsied  hands  that  are  guiding  its  affairs."  ^ 

It  is  not  surprising  that  a  society  thus  guided  should  China  com- 
become  a  byword  for  stupid  conservatism.     On  the  other  p^''^^.  ^.'* 

■'  ^  Revolution- 

hand,   tasks   for  rapid  and   wholesale   readjustment   fall  ary  France 

into  the  hands  of  young  men.^     At  the  outbreak  of  the 

French  Revolution  the  eleven  men  who  were  destined  to 

become  its  leaders  averaged  thirty-four  years  of  age ! 

"  This  is  our  lot  if  we  live  so  long  and  listen  to  those  who  love  us  — 

That  we  are  shunned  by  the  people  about  and  shamed  by  the  Powers  above 

us. 
Wherefore  be  free  of  your  harness  betimes ;   but  being  free  be  assured, 
That  he  who  hath  not  endured  to  tlie  death,  from  his  birth  he  hath  never 

endured!" 

^  Sheffield,  Forum,  29,  p.  595. 

^  "This  constant  return  to  purely  logical  activity  with  each  generation 
keeps  the  world  supplied  with  visionaries  and  reformers  —  that  is  to  say, 


220 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


Old-age  con- 
servatism is 
psychological 
in  origin  and 
may  be 
avoided 


Old  men 
discredited 
in  such  com- 
petitive 
fields  as  war- 
fare and 
business 


It  is  true  that  the  neophobia  of  the  old  has  its  cause  in 
mental  attitude  rather  than  in  physical  decay.  It  is  not 
that  the  mental  power  is  less ;  but  it  is  natural  for  a  man 
to  rely  on  the  thinking  he  did  in  his  twenties  and  to  refuse 
to  reopen  questions  he  "settled"  half  a  lifetime  ago.  This 
atrophy  of  thought  can  be  avoided  if  the  danger  is  fore- 
seen, and  a  man  deliberately  forms  the  habit  of  breaking 
thought-habits.  It  can  be  escaped  if  a  man  recognizes 
that  he  is  borne  on  a  stream  of  social  change  and  that, 
instead  of  trusting  to  the  perspective  in  which  things  ap- 
peared to  his  youth,  he  must  look  and  look  again.  Then 
there  are  searchers,  skilled  in  the  advancement  of  knowl- 
edge, who  never  conclude  their  education,  who  become 
accustomed  to  disowning  their  yesterdays  and  building  on 
to-morrows,  who  remain  progressive  throughout  life,  and 
in  their  riper  years,  rich  in  the  garnered  fruits  of  experi- 
ence, they  render  the  greatest  services  to  society. 

Such  splendid  specimens  are,  however,  too  few  to  man 
the  high  posts,  and  there  is  little  danger  of  society  dis- 
pensing too  soon  with  their  services.  The  danger  is  all 
the  other  way.  The  aged  generals  of  Frederick  the  Great 
cost  Prussia  dear  in  the  Napoleonic  wars,  and  England 
paid  well  for  putting  "good  old  Duller"  in  charge  of  her 
South  African  campaign.  A  nation  is  easiest  to  thrash 
about  a  generation  after  a  successful  war,  when  the  heroes 

with  saviours  and  leaders.  New  movements  are  born  in  young  minds, 
and  lack  of  experience  enables  youth  eternally  to  recall  civilization  to 
sound  bases.  If  each  generation  started  where  the  last  one  left  off, 
imagine  where  Lord  Chesterfield's  sons  would  be  to-day.  The  passing 
generation  smiles  and  cracks  its  weather-worn  jokes  about  youthful 
effusions;  but  this  ever  new,  ever  hopeful,  ever  daring,  ever  doing  youth- 
ful enthusiasm,  ever  returning  to  the  logical  bases  of  religion,  ethics, 
politics,  business,  art,  and  social  life  —  this  is  the  salvation  of  the  world." 
—  Barnes,  "The  Child  as  a  Social  Factor,"  "Studies  in  Education,"  359. 


CONDITIONS   AFFECTING   SWAY   OF   CUSTOM      221 

of  that  war,  having  become  old,  and  wise  in  their  own 
conceit,  have  gone  to  sleep  on  their  laurels.  It  is  well, 
therefore,  that  our  government  permits  the  retirement  of 
an  army  officer  at  sixty-two  and  requires  it  at  sixty-four.^ 
The  instituting  of  pension  funds  for  college  professors 
will,  no  doubt,  promote  efficiency  by  permitting  the  timely 
retirement  of  those  teachers  who  have  not  mastered  the 
difficult  art  of  self-renewal.  In  the  sphere  of  industrial 
management  Americans  are  as  impatient  with  old  men 
as  were  the  Athenians  of  Pericles  with  old  men  in  public 
affairs.^ 

*  Our  navy,  on  the  other  hand,  is  in  the  hands  of  the  old.  In  his 
message  on  this  subject  on  December  17,  1906,  President  Roosevelt  says: 
"Under  the  present  archaic  system  of  promotion,  without  parallel  in  the 
navy  of  any  other  first-class  power,  captains  are  commissioned  at  the 
average  age  of  fifty-six,  and  rear-admirals  at  the  average  age  of  sixty. 
The  following  table  gives  the  age  of  the  youngest  captains  and  flag- 
ofl&cers,  with  the  average  years  in  grade,  in  the  navies  of  Great  Britain, 
France,  Germany,  Japan,  and  the  United  States. 


Captains 

Sea-going 

Flag 

-OFFICERS 

Age 

Average 

years  in 

grade 

Age 

Average 

years  in  grade 

"  Great  Britain 

35 

II. 2 

45 

8.0 

France 

47 

9-5 

53 

14.2 

Germany 

42 

6.2 

SI 

6.0 

Japan 

38 

8.0 

44 

II.O 

United  States 

SS 

4-5 

59 

i.S" 

*"One  prominent  feature  in  the  administration  of  American  works, 
and  perhaps  especially  so  of  steel,  iron,  and  engineering  works,  is  the 
large  number  of  young  men  who  are  to  be  found  in  positions  of  authority. 
This  is  founded  upon  one  of  the  aphorisms  of  American  enterprise  — 
that  a  young  man's  intuitions  are  more  effective  than  an  old  man's 
experience.  As  an  example  of  the  comparative  youthfulness  of  the  men 
vyho  are  charged  with  responsible  positions,  I  probably  could  hardly 
cite  a  more  striking  case  than  that  of  the  Pressed  Steel  Car  Company 
at  Pittsburg  —  a  concern  that  employs  about  10,000  hands  at  four 
works  of  unusual  magnitude.     In  this  case  I  ascertained  that  the  founder 


222  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

Old  men  as         Where  continuity  is  precious,  where  it  is  a  matter  of 
custodians      keeping  pure  for  all   time   "the   faith  which  was  once 

of  religion  r      o     r 

and  of  law  delivered  unto  the  saints,"  old  men  are  properly  kept  in 
charge.  This  is  why  popes,  cardinals,  bishops,  and  rabbis 
are  appointed  old  and  hold  for  life.  This  is  why,  at  the 
last  pontifical  election,  the  great  cardinal  who  guided  the 
policy  of  Leo  XIII  was  adjudged  "too  young"  at  sixty, 
and  was  reserved  for  the  next  vacancy  that  should  occur 
in  the  chair  of  St.  Peter.  If  "all  principles,  both  of  law 
and  of  equity,  have  long  since  been  declared  and  are  to 
be  found  in  the  adjudged  cases,"  if  a  system  of  law  is 
"the  perfection  of  reason"  and  good  for  all  time,  then 
law  should  be  passed  down  the  generations  through  the 
hands  of  old  men.  Judges  should  hold  for  life,  and  it 
should  be  a  matter  of  no  uneasiness  that  the  justices  of 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  average  65.5 
years,  and  are  separated  by  an  interval  of  43  years  from 
the  completion  of  their  formal  legal  education;  that  the 
circuit  judges  average  57.5  years,  and  are  36.5  years  from 
their  preliminary  legal  studies;  that  the  judges  of  the  highest 
state  courts  are  near  56  years,  and  for  them  the  interval  is 
32.5  years.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  ours  is  not  a  static,  but  a 
highly  dynamic,  society,  and  the  rapid  and  sweeping  trans- 
formations that  occur  in  the  spheres  of  industry,  transpor- 
tation, business  organization,  and  urban  life  call  for 
correlated  changes  in  law  and  administration,  then  the 
wisdom  of  hinging  all  this  adaptive  development  ^  on  the 

is  fifty-six  years;  the  president,  thirty-eight  years;  his  assistant,  thirty- 
six  years;  the  chief  engineer,  thirty-two  years,  the  consulting  engineer, 
forty-two  years;  and  the  secretary,  thirty-six  years  of  age."  —  Jeans, 
"American  Industrial  Conditions  and  Competition,"   79-80." 

'  Professor   Henry  C.    Adams,  in  an    address   on  "  Economics  and 
Jurisprudence,"  read  before  the  American  Economic  Association  in  1897, 


CONDITIONS   AFFECTING   SWAY   OF   CUSTOM      223 

consent  of  life  judges  steeped  in  the  older  legal  philosophy, 
is  open  to  question. 

Commenting  on  the  question,  "How  can  the  gradual,  Whatjudi- 
cumulative  effect  of  working  conditions,  and  of  living  con-  bmty"^costs 
ditions,  upon  the  public  health,  be  made  obvious  to  the  society 
minds  of  the  judges  composing  the  courts  of  last  resort?" 
Professor  Henderson  says:^  "So  long  as  young  lawyers 
are  told  by  the  highest  and  worthiest  of  their  teachers 
that  'the  law  library  is  the  laboratory  of  the  student,' 
what  can  we  expect  afterward  ?  Every  beneficent  change 
in  legislation  comes  from  a  fresh  study  of  social  conditions 
and  of  social  ends,  and  from  some  rejection  of  obsolete 
law  to  make  room  for  a  rule  which  fits  the  new  facts. 
One  can  hardly  escape  from  the  conclusion  that  a  lawyer 
who  has  not  studied  economics  and  sociology  is  very  apt 
to  become  a  public  enemy ;  and  many  a  good  judge  would 
be  hurtful  if  he  did  not  get  through  newspapers  and  maga- 
zines a  diluted  kind  of  sociology  which  saves  him  from 
bondage  to  mere  precedent.  Reformation  does  not  come 
from  a  law  library,  which  has  its  useful  function  in  con- 
servatism; it  comes  from  a  complete  mastery  of  the  real 
world,  and  a  moral  judgment  as  to  what  ought  to  be  and 
is  not  yet.  .  .  .  Without  this  study  of  sociology  and 
economics  we  may  have  acute  interpreters  of  legal  phrase- 
ology, shrewd  money-getters,  advisers  of  corporations ;  but 

says :  "  Every  change  in  the  social  structure,  every  modification  of  the 
principle  of  political  or  industrial  association,  as  well  as  the  acceptance 
of  a  new  social  ideal,  must  be  accompanied  by  a  corresponding  change 
in  those  rights  and  duties  acknowledged  and  enforced  by  law.  Should 
this  development  in  jurisprudence  be  arrested  or  pursued  sluggishly,  as 
compared  with  that  of  some  particular  phase  of  associated  action, 
serious  mischief  will  inevitably  follow." 

'  Atnerican  Journal  of  Sociology,  XI,  847. 


224 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


The  hyper- 
trophy of 
structure 
arrests  the 
progress  of 
society 


Geographi- 
cal barriers 
may  shut 
out  stimuli 
to  change 


we  cannot  have  the  best  type  of  leaders  of  social  progress. 
The  legal  profession  has  already  rendered  service  which 
we  gladly  recognize  and  honor;  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
many  of  its  best  trained  men,  lacking  the  vision  for  the 
principle  that  'new  occasions  teach  new  duties,'  obstruct 
the  way  with  barricades  of  dead  precedents." 

Government,  owing  to  the  fact  that  it  is  a  form  of 
organization,  is  conservative ;  and  hence  preponderance  of 
imperative  occasions  for  cooperation  over  optional  occasions 
engenders  coercive  forms  of  cooperation,  magnifies  the 
role  of  government  in  social  life,  cramps  individual  initia- 
tive, dwarfs  Individ  uaHty,  and  finally  arrests  development. 
The  great  irrigating,  river-basin  societies  —  Egypt,  Baby- 
lonia, India,  China  —  in  consequence  of  the  need  of 
authoritative  levee-building  and  systematic  regulation  of 
the  waters,  developed  government  to  such  a  degree  that 
they  became  stalled  by  these  massive  structures.^  Over- 
much cooperation  in  fighting  tends  in  the  same  direction. 
On  the  other  hand,  little  societies  like  the  Greek  city- 
states,  established  in  small  valleys  with  natural  defences, 
opening  seaward,  leave  individuality  free  and  foster 
progress. 

Physical  isolation  favors  the  sway  of  custom.  In  the 
"valley  closets"  of  mountain  regions  the  old  endures 
long  after  the  plains  and  the  seaboard  populations  have 
discarded  it.  In  the  Pyrenees  are  encysted  the  little 
mediaeval  Republic  of  Andorra  and  the  Basques  with 
their  queer  agglutinative  language.  Auvergne  and  Savoy, 
the  highlands  of  France,  are  little  penetrated  by  scepticism, 


^  See  Buckle,  "History  of  Civilization  in  England,"  ch.  V,  for  the  ob- 
structive working  of  authoritative  government  —  as  distinguished  from 
the  ministering  type  of  government  that  here  and  there  is  appearing. 


CONDITIONS   AFFECTING   SWAY   OF   CUSTOM      225 

divorce,  suicide,  liberalism,  and  the  other  characteristic 
features  of  the  modern  social  type.  Hidden  away  in  the 
mountain  areas  are  found  persisting  social  forms  which 
mark  out  the  forgotten  trail  by  which  the  culture  peoples 
climbed  to  their  present  height.  The  Russian  sociologist 
Kovalewsky  owed  much  of  his  success  in  reconstructing 
early  social  conditions  to  the  revelations  of  the  primitive 
societies  sealed  up  in  the  Caucasus,  while  Westermarck 
was  enabled  by  his  studies  on  the  people  of  the  Great 
Atlas  to  make  rich  contributions  to  social  embryology. 
The  literary  artist  in  search  of  local  color  goes  to  the 
Carpathians  or  the  Balkans.  The  people  of  the  Appala- 
chians, one  of  the  largest  horseback  areas  left  in  all  the 
world,  with  their  hospitality  and  feuds,  their  spinning- 
wheels  and  hand-looms,  their  "hard-shell"  predestinarian- 
ism  and  their  retention  of  old  words  like  "holp"  and 
"drug"  and  "gorm"  and  "feisty,"  resemble  their  colonial 
forebears  more  than  any  other  Americans.^ 

Says  Mahaffy:^  "This  clear  and  bold,  though  perhaps  Mountains 
narrow,  view  of  justification  by  faith  alone,  the  sudden  oi'^iifj^ 
passage  from  darkness  to  light,  the  exclusion  of  all  attempts 
at  virtue  outside  the  pale  of  this  conviction, — all  has  been 
inherited  by  the  modern  Protestant  from  the  ancient 
Stoic  far  more  directly  than  most  men  imagine.  We  can 
trace  it  historically,  with  but  few  gaps  in  the  obscurity  of 
the  Middle  Ages  from  the  rugged  mountains  of  Cilicia, 
the  original  home  of  Stoicism,  to  the  equally  rugged  land 
of  the  Scotch  Covenanters,     Among  the  bold  mountaineers 

1  From  the  daily  speech  of  the  Kentucky  mountaineers  Professor  W. 
I.  Thomas  gathered  a  list  of  three  hundred  words  obsolete  since  about 
the  sixteenth  century  or  surviving  only  in  the  dialects  of  England. 

2  "The  Progress  of  Hellenism  in  Alexander's  Empire,"  144-145. 

Q 


226 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


Backward- 
ness of  out- 
of-the-way 
islands 


Why  the 
back  country 
is  old-fash- 
ioned 


of  Cilicia,  celebrated  in  their  heathen  days  for  facing 
death  instead  of  slavery,  where  whole  city  populations 
committed  suicide  when  pressed  by  Persian,  by  Greek, 
by  Roman  besiegers,  this  congenial  doctrine  found  its 
home,  till  from  Isauria,  the  wildest  part  of  these  high- 
lands, came  the  Emperor  Leo  to  sit  on  the  Byzantine 
throne  and  open  his  crusade  against  images.  It  was  this 
Protestant  or  Stoic  spirit  that  dictated  the  whole  icono- 
clastic war,  and  when  the  adherents  of  this  dynasty  were 
driven  out,  they  took  refuge  in  Wallachia  and  Moldavia, 
whence  they  passed,  or  their  spirit  passed,  into  Moravia 
and  Bohemia,  where  in  due  time  arose  John  Huss  and 
Jerome  of  Prague ;  and  from  these  early  reformers  Protes- 
tantism spread  to  Germany,  England,  Scotland,  and  thence 
with  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  to  North  America  —  all  the  spirit 
of  Stoicism,  so  strong  in  Paul,  and  so  strong  in  the  Scotch 
Calvinists,  that  it  is  difficult  to  find  any  closer  spiritual 
relationship  asserting  itself  over  diversities  of  race  and 
language  across  wide  gulfs  of  space  and  time." 

Islands,  if  they  are  off  the  beaten  tracks,  tend  to  be 
traditional  in  spirit.  The  Isle  of  Man  is  famous  for  the 
old-time  flavor  of  its  institutions  and  customs.  In  the 
interior  of  Sardinia  the  traveller  can  reckon  on  a  hospi- 
tality that  reminds  one  of  the  Odyssey.  In  Corsica  blood 
feud  is  still  so  flourishing  that  France  is  said  to  hang  the 
walls  of  her  schoolrooms  there  with  admonitory  texts  like 
"Thou  Shalt  not  kill." 

In  general,  the  country  has  few  contacts  with  the  out- 
side, and  is  therefore  conservative.  Here  old  fashions, 
greetings,  ballads,  locutions,  superstitions,  and  prejudices 
find  their  asylum.  In  the  back  country  survive  clannish- 
ness,    the    sacrament    theory   of   marriage,    full    quivers, 


CONDITIONS   AFFECTING   SWAY   OF   CUSTOM      227 

marital  supremacy,  patriarchal  authority,  snuff-dipping, 
herb  doctors,  self-supporting  preachers,  foot-washing,  hell- 
fire  doctrine,  controversy  on  the  form  of  baptism,  dread  of 
witchcraft,  and  belief  in  the  flatness  of  the  earth.  Where 
tradition  holds,  the  institutions  of  control  are  effective, 
and  hence  rural  communities  are  usually  quiet  and  orderly. 
But  some  of  their  members  object  to  canned  life.  Mrs. 
Grundy  stifles  individuality,  and  so  the  rebels  break  for 
the  city  where  they  will  not  meet  at  every  turn  the  query, 
"What  will  people  say?"  Here  some,  missing  the  whole- 
some inherited  restraints,  sink  into  vice  and  crime,  while 
others,  on  escaping  from  the  cave  of  ancestral  custom, 
burst  into  intellectual  bloom  and  help  to  make  city  life  a 
fever  of  progress.  The  variety  of  occupations,  interests, 
and  opinions  in  the  urban  group  produces  a  spiritual 
fermentation  which  results  in  a  broader,  freer  judgment 
and  an  appreciation  of  new  thoughts,  manners,  and  ideals. 
Compare  the  provincialism  and  conservatism  of  the  South 
—  essentially  rural  —  with  the  temper  of  the  more  urban 
North.     Compare  Russia  (rural)  with  Germany  (urban). 

The  introduction  of  improved  communication  under-  Effect  of 
mines  the  sway  of  custom  in  case  it  depends  on  physical  J^  er  means 


commurn- 


isolation.  When  the  first  railroads  were  run  through  the  cation 
backward  provinces  of  France,  the  new  visibly  percolated 
outward  from  the  railroad  as  water  seeps  from  an  irri- 
gation canal  and  forms  a  green  strip  in  the  desert.  The 
clan  system  of  the  Highlands  was  doomed  when  in  1745- 
1746  General  Wade  built  his  military  road  into  their 
heart.  The  railroads  penetrating  the  rougher  parts  of 
Mexico  set  the  hand  three  centuries  forward  on  the  dial. 
Linguistic  isolation  favors  the  old.  Difference  of  speech 
offers  a  serious  barrier  to  mental  contact  and  inflow  of 


228  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

A  local  dia-    new  ideas.     A  dialect,  or  patois,  —  such  as  Basque,  Breton, 
lect  shuts        Manx,  Welsh,  Cornish,  Gaelic,  Erse,  Canadian  French, 

out  new  7  7  7  7  7  J 

ideas  Pennsylvania  Dutch,  Yiddish,  —  is   virtually    an   amber 

matrix  preserving  intact  the  manners  and  beliefs  of  a 
former  time.  It  was  responsible  in  part  for  the  super- 
stitiousness  and  feudal  loyalty  that  made  La  Vendee  the 
open  sore  of  revolutionary  France.  By  means  of  com- 
mon schools  to  replace  such  a  tongue  with  one  of  the 
great  national  languages  is  like  substituting  an  irrigation 
ditch  for  natural  seepage,  and  is  necessary  if  nationalism 
is  to  triumph  over  provincialism, 
ciannishness  Sociol  isolation,  by  hindering  contact  with  contem- 
conservatism  po^aries,  makes  closer  the  contact  with  the  past.  The 
Jews,  for  ages  penned  up  in  the  Ghetto  and  barred  from 
full  civil  and  social  equality,  came  to  be  obstinately  tradi- 
tional. Confined  behind  the  walls  of  the  Jewry,  forbidden 
to  own  an  estate  or  practise  a  profession  or  intermarry 
with  Christians,  they  kept  alive  a  jealous,  exclusive, 
tribal  spirit,  foreign  altogether  to  the  demotic  character 
of  modern  society.  As  if  Canon  Law  and  Civil  Law  had 
not  done  enough,  the  Jews  maintained  between  them- 
selves and  the  Christians  a  hedge  of  their  own,  viz.,  their 
religious  and  ceremonial  observances.  The  practice  of 
their  rites  obliged  them  to  live  in  closest  contact  with  one 
another  and  to  shun  the  uncircumcised.  They  might  not 
eat  the  same  food  as  the  Christians,  or  food  prepared  in 
the  same  way.  Regulated  in  the  minutest  details  of  life 
by  the  six  hundred  and  thirteen  commandments  binding 
on  the  orthodox  Jew,  they  were  obliged  to  keep  aloof  from 
the  Gentiles,  with  the  result  that  they  became  in  the  last 
degree  clannish  and  conservative.  Their  feast-days  and 
fast-days  commemorate  the  ancient  joys  and  sorrows  of 


CONDITIONS  AFFECTING   SWAY  OF   CUSTOM      229 

Israel,  and,  after  eighteen  hundred  years,  the  Synagogue 
still  bewails  the  fall  of  the  Temple. 

Conversely,  an  institution  like  the  "guest-friendship"  "Guest- 
of  the  Homeric  Greeks  can  do  much  to  avert  the  cramp-  ^'^^g^^fQ^" 
ing  effects  of  isolation.  Says  Keller:'  "  The  Greeks  were  advance- 
an  'active'  race;  with  them  inertia  before  a  possibility  of  ™^°* 
advance  was  at  a  minimum.  Minds  were  alive  and 
elastic,  eager  and  curious  concerning  external  happen- 
ings, and  bent  upon  an  enthusiastic  pursuit  of  material 
welfare.  In  all  the  phases  of  Greek  life  are  found  evi- 
dences of  this  receptivity  of  mind  and  eagerness  for 
advance,  impulses  which  work  powerfully  toward  the  de- 
cay of  syngenetic  feelings  and  customs,  and  toward  the 
evolution  of  amalgamation  and  nationalization.  Toward 
this  end  one  of  the  chief  contributors  is  a  body  of  tradi- 
tions and  usages  connected  with  strangers,  suppliants, 
guests,  and  guest-friends.  Since  the  stranger  became  at 
once  a  guest,  and  since  the  guest  was  forever  afterward  a 
guest-friend,  this  body  of  ideas  and  practices  is  appro- 
priately called  guest-friendship."  After  describing  the 
unlimited  hospitality  and  courtesy  shown  to  the  chance 
stranger,  Keller  goes  on  to  say:^  "The  presence  of  the 
religious  sanctions  in  such  number  and  strength  indi- 
cates that  the  birth  of  the  host-guest  relation  took  place 
in  the  more  or  less  remote  past;  this  is  witnessed  to  also 
by  the  completeness  of  the  relation's  development.  Ap- 
parently the  origins  of  guest-friendship  lay  in  the  reach- 
ings-forth  of  a  developing  people  toward  an  advance  and 
toward  a  further  and  larger  acquaintance  with  a  world 
of  greater  material  wealth  and  luxury  than  their  own." 
"  The  people  were  eager  to  learn,  and  men  were  their  only 
*  "  Homeric  Society,"  299.  ^  Ibid.,  303. 


230 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


The  home 
not  an  ade- 
quate sphere 
of  stimulus 


books;  a  stranger,  who,  if  he  were  not  himself  a  Phoeni- 
cian, could  yet  describe  the  wonders  of  those  magical 
foreign  lands,  was  a  rare  treasure  to  an  isolated  com- 
munity. People  came  to  be  very  fond  of  entertaining, 
and  gladly  accommodated  another  man's  guest  in  his 
absence.  One  man  is  mentioned  who  had  a  house  on 
the  public  road  and  entertained  every  one  who  came." 
"  In  time  the  real  practical  value  of  the  relation  became 
more  and  more  apparent,  and  Zeus  became  the  guardian 
of  strangers,  who  were  the  heralds  of  the  time's  advance. 
Eagerness  for  news,  for  tales  of  the  exterior  world,  its 
people  and  doings,  is  marked;  it  is  characteristic  of  an 
energetic,  isolated  community."  Guest-friendship  seems 
to  have  taken  its  origin  "from  a  period  several  centuries 
earlier  than  the  Homeric  age,  and  to  have  been  due 
chiefly  to  the  quickening  contact  with  an  older  and  more 
polished  civilization." 

House  life,  by  secluding  inmates  from  one  another  and 
from  the  outside  world,  favors  custom  imitation.  Women 
are  most  narrow-minded  and  traditional  where  the  harem 
or  zenana  prevails.  The  marked  conservatism  of  even 
latter-day  woman  in  respect  to  religion,  education,  and 
ethics  —  her  foolish  clinging  to  superannuated  race  and 
class  prejudices  —  is  due  to  the  restricting  of  thought- 
provoking  intercourse  by  the  immuring  walls  of  the  home. 
In  the  Balkans  men's  costumes  became  Orientalized  by 
contact  with  the  Turks,  whereas  the  women,  secluded  at 
home,  preserved  the  old  national  costumes  of  pre-Turkish 
days.^  The  kitchen,  lying  within  woman's  jurisdiction,  is 
confessedly  primitive,  far  less  transformed  by  mechanical 
inventions  than  the  workshop.  In  South  Europe  a  pot 
*  Evans,  "Through  Bosnia  and  the  Herzegovina,"  15,  16. 


CONDITIONS   AFFECTING   SWAY   OF   CUSTOM      231 

or  cruse  from  the  kitchen  is  more  likely  to  resemble  some 
classic  pattern  than  a  tool  from  the  artisan's  bench/ 
The  household  crockery  and  pottery  of  the  Danubian 
peoples  show  a  similarity  of  pattern  that  recalls  their  unity 
under  the  vanished  Eastern  Empire,  whereas  the  field 
implements  show  no  such  fidelity  to  the  past. 

Literacy  is  adverse  to  custom  imitation  because,  on  the  Reading 
whole,  books  and  newspapers  create  contacts  with  the  fgyo^^^^g^ 
present  rather  than  with  the  past.     Oral  tradition  over-  access  to 
leaps  time,  books  both  time  and  space.     Most  of  what  the 
illiterate   receive   orally  —  lays,   ballads,  legends,  myths, 
and  proverbs  —  is  handed  down  and  consequently  cuts 
a  channel  between  past  and  present,  but  not  between  people 
and  people.     Therefore  diffusion  of  the  ability  to  read 
makes,  on  the  whole,  for  progress,  though,  to  be  sure,  the 
staple  of  reading  may  come  to  be  an  ancient  sacred  litera- 
ture.    To-day,  at  least,  the  power  to  read  opens  a  door  to 
the  newspaper,  which  is  the  natural  enemy  of  tradition, 
because  it  is  bound  to  emphasize  the  new  and  to  exaggerate 
the  momentousness  of  the  present. 

School  education  is  in  our  day  a  mighty  engine  of  progress.  The  school 
The  teacher  has  a  wider  outlook  and  a  freer  mind  than  the  ^^l^l^' 
average  parent,  so  that  the  school,  provided  it  appropriates  either  of 
promptly  the  fruits  of  contemporary  thought  and  research,  ['™|^tion°'^ 
is  an  emancipator.     It  delivers  the  young  from  ignorant 
parental   prejudices,    and   counteracts   oral   tradition  by 
injecting   into  the  mind  up-to-date  knowledge.     Never- 
theless, if  the  basis  of  instruction  be  the  ancient  writings 
—  Talmud,  Koran,  Vedas,  Chinese  Classics  —  the  school 
may  foster  a  traditionalism  far  more  cramping  and  in- 
veterate than  the  naive  traditionalism  of  the  unlettered. 

Uhid.,  17,  18. 


232 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


Universities 
as  citadels 
of  dead 
learning 


The  contents  of  its  curriculum  make  the  Chinese  school 
the  instiller  of  the  most  impregnable  conservatism  that  has 
been  encountered  by  the  Western  culture. 

Says  Sheffield:^  "The  scholars  of  any  city  in  China 
could  now  rewrite  the  leading  classics  from  memory.  Not 
only  are  Confucian  scholars  saturated  with  these  writings, 
but  the  more  striking  sayings  have  passed  down  into 
the  common  speech,  so  that  those  who  are  'blind 
with  their  eyes  open '  (the  uneducated)  are  constantly 
quoting  them  without  thought  of  their  origin.  The 
common  speech  is  loaded  with  proverbs  that  reflect 
the  thoughts  of  the  Ancients.  Scholars,  competing  for 
honors,  must  present  in  their  essays  the  traditional  inter- 
pretation of  the  doctrines  of  the  Sages.  If  they  should 
presume  to  set  forth  views  of  their  own,  not  in  harmony 
with  this  interpretation,  they  would  be  stripped  by  the 
public  examiner  of  honors  already  conferred,  and  would 
be  excluded  from  competing  for  literary  distinction.  Thus 
the  educational  system  of  China  has  not  served  to  lead 
men's  minds  into  new  lines  of  thought  or  into  fresh  fields 
of  investigation ;  rather  has  it  served  to  confine  the  thoughts 
of  each  generation  of  scholars  within  the  limits  of  *  ancient 
instruction,'  and  to  stifle  independent  thought  and  in- 
quiry." 

The  record  of  Oxford,  Lou  vain,  and  Pisa  as  enemies  of 
science  and  modern  thought  ^  makes  one  wonder  if  there 
is  any  conservatism  so  rooted  and  fanatical  as  that  which 
springs  from  a  certain  type  of  university.  The  traits  of 
this  type  are  brought  out  by  Bryce  ^  in  commenting  on  the 

1  Forum,  29,  p.  593. 

^  White,  "  History  of  the  Warfare  between  Science  and  Theology,"  I, 
128,  133,  149,  387-389.  406;   II,  335-337- 

^"Studies  in  History  and  Jurisprudence,"  II,  231-233. 


CONDITIONS   AFFECTING   SWAY   OF   CUSTOM      233 

resemblance  between    the  mediaeval    universities  and  El 
Azhar,  the  great  Mohammedan  university  of  to-day. 

"In  both,  a  narrow  circle  of  subjects  and  practically 
no  choice  of  curriculum.  El  Azhar  teaches  even  fewer 
branches  than  did  Oxford  or  Bologna  in  the  thirteenth 
century,  for  in  Mussulman  countries  the  Koran  has  swal- 
lowed up  other  topics  more  than  theology,  queen  of  the 
sciences,  and  the  study  of  the  Civil  and  Canon  Laws  did  in 
Europe."  "Finally,  in  both,  a  kind  of  teaching  and  study 
which  tends  to  the  development  of  two  aptitudes  to  the 
neglect  of  all  others,  viz.,  memory  and  dialectic  ingenuity. 
The  first  business  of  the  student  is  to  know  his  text-book, 
if  necessary  to  know  every  word  of  it,  together  with  the 
different  interpretations  every  obscure  text  may  Dear. 
His  next  is  to  be  prepared  to  sustain  by  quick,  keen  argu- 
ment and  subtle  distinction  either  side  of  any  controverted 
question  which  may  be  proposed  for  discussion.  As  the 
habit  of  knowing  text-books  thoroughly  —  and  the  knowl- 
edge of  Aristotle  and  the  Corpus  Juris  possessed  by 
mediaeval  logicians  and  lawyers  was  wonderfully  exact 
and  minute  —  made  men  deferential  to  authority  and 
tradition,  so  the  constant  practice  in  oral  dialectical  dis- 
cussion made  men  quick,  keen,  fertile,  and  adroit  in  argu- 
ment. The  combination  of  brilliant  acuteness  in  hand- 
ling points  not  yet  settled,  with  unquestioning  acceptance 
of  principles  and  maxims  determined  by  authority,  is 
characteristic  of  Muhammadan  Universities  even  more 
than  it  was  of  European  ones  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and 
tended  in  both  to  turn  men  away  from  the  examination 
of  premises  and  to  cast  the  blight  of  barrenness  upon  the 
extraordinary  inventiveness  and  acuteness  which  the  habit 
of  casuistical  discussion  developed." 


234 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


Open  dis- 
cussion dis- 
solves the 
bonds  of 
custom 


Freedom  of  discussion  breaks  the  ancestral  spell.  On 
this  there  is  nothing  equal  to  the  classic  passage  from 
Bagehot/ 

"  A  government  by  discussion,  if  it  can  be  borne,  at  once 
breaks  down  the  yoke  of  fixed  custom.  The  idea  of  the 
two  is  inconsistent.  As  far  as  it  goes,  the  mere  putting 
up  of  a  subject  to  discussion,  with  the  object  of  being 
guided  by  that  discussion,  is  a  clear  admission  that  that 
subject  is  in  no  degree  settled  by  established  rule,  and  that 
men  are  free  to  choose  in  it.  It  is  an  admission,  too,  that 
there  is  no  sacred  authority,  —  no  one  transcendent  and 
divinely  appointed  man  whom  in  that  matter  the  com- 
munity is  bound  to  obey.  And  if  a  single  subject  or  group 
of  subjects  be  once  admitted  to  discussion,  erelong  the 
habit  of  discussion  comes  to  be  established,  the  sacred 
charm  of  use  and  wont  to  be  dissolved.  'Democracy,' 
it  has  been  said  in  modern  times,  '  is  like  the  grave ;  it 
takes,  but  it  does  not  give.'  The  same  is  true  of  'dis- 
cussion.' Once  effectually  submit  a  subject  to  that  ordeal, 
and  you  can  never  withdraw  it  again ;  you  can  never  again 
clothe  it  with  mystery,  or  fence  it  by  consecration;  it 
remains  forever  open  to  free  choice,  and  exposed  to  pro- 
fane deliberation. 

"  The  only  subjects  which  can  be  first  submitted,  or  which 
till  a  very  late  age  of  civilization  can  be  submitted  to  dis- 
cussion in  the  community,  are  the  questions  involving 
the  visible  and  pressing  interests  of  the  community;  they 
are  political  questions  of  high  and  urgent  import.  If 
a  nation  has  in  any  considerable  degree  gained  the  habit, 
and  exhibited  the  capacity,  to  discuss  these  questions  with 
freedom,  and  to  decide  them  with  discretion,  to  argue 

*  "Physics  and  Politics,"  161-164. 


CONDITIONS  AFFECTING   SWAY   OF   CUSTOM      235 

much  on  politics  and  not  to  argue  ruinously,  an  enormous 
advance  in  other  kinds  of  civilization  may  confidently  be 
predicted  for  it.  And  the  reason  is  a  plain  deduction  from 
the  principles  which  we  have  found  to  guide  early  civiliza- 
tion. The  first  prehistoric  men  were  passionate  savages, 
with  the  greatest  difficulty  coerced  into  order  and  com- 
pressed into  a  state.  For  ages  were  spent  in  beginning 
that  order  and  founding  that  state;  the  only  sufficient 
and  effectual  agent  in  so  doing  was  consecrated  custom; 
but  then  that  custom  gathered  over  everything,  arrested 
all  onward  progress,  and  stayed  the  originality  of  mankind. 
If,  therefore,  a  nation  is  able  to  gain  the  benefit  of  custom 
without  the  evil,  —  if  after  ages  of  waiting  it  can  have 
order  and  choice  together,  —  at  once  the  fatal  clog  is 
removed,  and  the  ordinary  springs  of  progress,  as  in  a 
modern  community  we  conceive  them,  begin  their  elastic 
action. 

"  Discussion,  too,  has  incentives  to  progress  peculiar  to  Discussion 
itself.  It  gives  a  premium  to  intelligence.  To  set  out  the  J^^^^^^e' 
arguments  required  to  determine  political  action  with  analytic 
such  force  and  effect  that  they  really  should  determine 
it,  is  a  high  and  great  exertion  of  intellect.  Of  course,  all 
such  arguments  are  produced  under  conditions ;  the  argu- 
ment abstractedly  best  is  not  necessarily  the  winning 
argument.  Political  discussion  must  move  those  who  have 
to  act ;  it  must  be  framed  in  the  ideas,  and  be  consonant 
with  the  precedent,  of  its  time,  just  as  it  must  speak  its 
language.  But  within  these  marked  conditions  good  dis- 
cussion is  better  than  bad ;  no  people  can  bear  a  govern- 
ment of  discussion  for  a  day,  which  does  not,  within  the 
boundaries  of  its  prejudices  and  its  ideas,  prefer  good 
reasoning  to  bad  reasoning,  sound  argument  to  unsound. 


mind 


teaches 
tolerance 


236  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

A  prize  for  argumentative  mind  is  given  in  free  states,  to 
which  no  other  states  have  anything  to  compare. 
Discussion  "  Tolerance,  too,  is  learned  in  discussion,  and,  as  history 

shows,  is  only  so  learned.  In  all  customary  societies 
bigotry  is  the  ruling  principle.  In  rude  places  to  this  day 
any  one  who  says  anything  new  is  looked  on  with  suspicion, 
and  is  persecuted  by  opinion  if  not  injured  by  penalty. 
One  of  the  greatest  pains  to  human  nature  is  the  pain  of  a 
new  idea.  It  is,  as  common  people  say,  so  'upsetting'; 
it  makes  you  think  that,  after  all,  your  favorite  notions 
may  be  wrong,  your  firmest  beliefs  ill  founded ;  it  is  certain 
that  till  now  there  was  no  place  allotted  in  your  mind  to 
the  new  and  startling  inhabitant,  and  now  that  it  has  con- 
quered an  entrance,  you  do  not  at  once  see  which  of  your 
old  ideas  it  will  or  will  not  turn  out,  with  which  of  them  it 
can  be  reconciled,  and  with  which  it  is  at  essential  enmity. 
Naturally,  therefore,  common  men  hate  a  new  idea,  and 
are  disposed  more  or  less  to  ill-treat  the  original  man  who 
brings  it.  Even  nations  with  long  habits  of  discussion  are 
intolerant  enough.  In  England,  where  there  is  on  the 
whole  probably  a  freer  discussion  of  a  greater  number  of 
subjects  than  ever  was  before  in  the  world,  we  know  how 
much  power  bigotry  retains.  But  discussion,  to  be  suc- 
cessful, requires  tolerance.  It  fails  wherever,  as  in  a 
French  political  assembly,  any  one  who  hears  anything 
which  he  dislikes  tries  to  howl  it  down.  If  we  know  that 
a  nation  is  capable  of  enduring  continuous  discussion,  we 
know  that  it  is  capable  of  practising  with  equanimity  con- 
tinuous tolerance. 

"  The  power  of  a  government  by  discussion  as  an  instru- 
ment of  elevation  plainly  depends  —  other  things  being 
equal  —  on  the  greatness  or  littleness  of  the  things  to  be 


CONDITIONS  AFFECTING   SWAY   OF   CUSTOM      237 

discussed.     There  are  periods  when  great  ideas  are  'in  The  free 
the  air,'  and  when,  from  some  cause  or  other,  even  com-  discussion 

'  '  'of  great 

mon  persons  seem  to  partake  of  an  unusual  elevation,   questions 
The  age  of  Elizabeth  in  England  was  conspicuously  such  P''^'^"'^^^ 

"  "  '^^  -'  an  epoch 

a  time.  The  new  idea  of  the  Reformation  in  religion,  and  of  progress 
the  enlargement  of  the  mcenia  mundi  by  the  discovery  of 
new  and  singular  lands,  taken  together,  gave  an  impulse 
to  thought  which  few,  if  any,  ages  can  equal.  The  dis- 
cussion, though  not  wholly  free,  was  yet  far  freer  than  in 
the  average  of  ages  and  countries.  Accordingly  every 
pursuit  seemed  to  start  forward.  Poetry,  science,  and 
architecture,  different  as  they  are,  and  removed  as  they  all 
are  at  first  sight  from  such  an  influence  as  discussion,  were 
suddenly  started  onward.  Macaulay  would  have  said 
you  might  rightly  read  the  power  of  discussion  'in  the 
poetry  of  Shakespeare,  in  the  prose  of  Bacon,  in  the  oriels 
of  Longleat,  and  the  stately  pinnacles  of  Burleigh.'  This 
is,  in  truth,  but  another  case  of  the  principle  of  which  I  have 
had  occasion  to  say  so  much  as  to  the  character  pi  ages 
and  countries.  If  any  particular  power  is  much  prized 
in  an  age,  those  possessed  of  that  power  will  be  imitated ; 
those  deficient  in  that  power  will  be  despised.  In  con- 
sequence an  unusual  quantity  of  that  power  will  be  de- 
veloped, and  be  conspicuous.  Within  certain  limits  vig- 
orous and  elevated  thought  was  respected  in  Elizabeth's 
time,  and,  therefore,  vigorous  and  elevated  thinkers  were 
many;  and  the  effect  went  far  beyond  the  cause.  It 
penetrated  into  physical  science,  for  which  very  few  men 
cared;  and  it  began  a  reform  in  philosophy  to  which 
almost  all  were  then  opposed.  In  a  word,  the  temper  of 
the  age  encouraged  originality,  and  in  consequence  original 
men  started  into  prominence,   went   hither   and   thither 


238 


SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 


A  sacred 
book  is  ob- 
structive, 
particularly 
if  it  is  the 
product  of  a 
single  mind 


where  they  liked,  arrived  at  goals  which  the  age  never 
expected,  and  so  made  it  ever  memorable. 

"  In  this  manner,  all  the  great  movements  of  thought  in 
ancient  and  modern  times  have  been  nearly  connected 
in  time  with  government  by  discussion.  Athens,  Rome, 
the  Italian  republics  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  communes 
and  states-general  of  feudal  Europe,  have  all  had  a  special 
and  peculiar  quickening  influence,  which  they  owed  to 
their  freedom,  and  which  states  without  that  freedom 
have  never  communicated.  And  it  has  been  at  the  time 
of  great  epochs  of  thought  —  at  the  Peloponnesian  War, 
at  the  fall  of  the  Roman  Republic,  at  the  Reformation,  at 
the  French  Revolution  —  that  such  liberty  of  speaking 
and  thinking  have  produced  their  full  effect." 

Society  rusts  on  its  bearings  when  it  acknowledges  the 
supremacy  of  an  ancient  sacred  hook,  particularly  a  book 
that  grasps  the  believer  on  all  sides  of  his  life.  All  worship 
of  an  intellectual  product  from  a  remote  past  shuts  out  con- 
temporary influences;  but  never  is  the  mind  so  sealed  up 
as  when  the  object  of  reverence  is  a  single  writing  rather 
than  a  body  of  literature,  like  the  Bible  or  the  Sacred 
Books  of  India.  The  latter,  being  the  outcome  of  diverse 
experiences,  epochs,  and  points  of  view,  gives  some  room 
for  judgment  and  choice,  whereas  the  former,  being  off- 
spring of  a  single  mind,  cramps.  Says  Bryce:^  "The 
Koran,  being  taken  as  an  unchangeable  and  unerring 
rule  of  life  and  thought  in  all  departments,  has  enslaved 
men's  minds.  Even  the  divergence  of  different  lines  of 
tradition  and  the  varieties  of  interpretation  of  its  text  or 
of  its  traditions  has  given  no  such  opening  for  a  stimula- 
tive diversity  of  comment  and  speculation  as  the  Christian 

*  "  Studies  in  History  and  Jurisprudence,"  II,  235. 


ditionalism 


CONDITIONS   AFFECTING   SWAY   OF   CUSTOM      239 

standards,  both  the  Scriptures  themselves,  the  product  of 
different  ages  and  minds,  and  the  writings  of  the  Fathers, 
secured  for  Christian  theology." 

Strong  group  or  race  feeling  limits  intercourse  with  con-  a  historical 
temporaries  and  directs  the  gaze  backward.     Such  feeling  8'"°"?-'^°^' 

r  o  o    sciousness 

may  have  its  origin  in  religious  hatred.  Think  of  the  fosters  tra- 
clannishness,  and  therewith  traditionalism,  of  the  Jews, 
the  Copts,  the  Druses  of  Lebanon,  the  Parsees,  the  French 
Protestants,  the  Irish  Presbyterians,  the  English  Catholics ! 
Or,  tradition  may  be  cherished  as  the  badge  of  a  crushed 
but  still  living  nationality.  A  people  no  longer  indepen- 
dent, striving  to  keep  itself  distinct  and  united  in  the  midst 
of  another  people  (Czechs,  Bulgars,  Poles,  Serbs,  Georg- 
ians), naturally  makes  the  literature  and  history  of  the 
distant  epoch  when  it  was  independent  and  glorious,  the 
focus  of  its  attention,  the  pith  of  its  instruction.^    If  it 

*  "Whoever  has  lived  among  these  Transylvanian  Saxons,  and  has 
taken  the  trouble  to  study  them,  must  have  remarked  that  not  only  seven 
centuries'  residence  in  a  strange  land  and  in  the  midst  of  antagonistic 
races  has  made  them  lose  none  of  their  identity,  but  that  they  are,  so  to 
say,  plus  catholiques  que  le  pape  —  that  is,  more  thoroughly  Teutonic 
than  the  Germans  living  to-day  in  the  original  fatherland.  And  it  is 
just  because  of  the  adverse  circumstances  in  which  they  were  placed,  and 
of  the  opposition  and  attacks  which  met  them  on  all  sides,  that  they  have 
kept  themselves  so  conservatively  unchanged.  Feeling  that  every  step  in 
another  direction  was  a  step  towards  the  enemy,  finding  that  every  con- 
cession they  made  threatened  to  become  the  link  of  a  captive's  chain, 
no  wonder  they  clung  stubbornly,  tenaciously,  blindly  to  each  pecu- 
liarity of  language,  dress,  and  custom  in  a  manner  which  has  probably 
not  got  its  parallel  in  history.  Left  on  their  native  soil  and  surrounded 
by  friends  and  countrymen,  they  would  undoubtedly  have  changed  as 
other  nations  have  changed.  Their  isolated  position  and  the  peculiar 
circumstances  of  their  surroundings  have  kept  them  what  they  were.  Such 
as  these  Saxons  wandered  forth  from  the  far  west  to  seek  a  home  in  a 
strange  land,  such  we  find  them  again  to-day,  seven  centuries  later,  like 
a  corpse  frozen  in  a  glacier  which  comes  to  Hght  unchanged  after  a  long 
lapse  of  years."  —  Gerard,  "The  Land  beyond  the  Forest,"  31, 


240 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


No  inter- 
assimilation 
among  cus- 
tom-boimd 
peoples 


The  coerdve 

vs.  the  at- 
tractive 
method  of 
assimilation 


has  a  religion  of  its  own,  it  clings  to  it  with  a  zeal  all  the 
more  desperate  because  it  is  all  that  patriotism  has  to 
cling  to.  It  is  not  surprising  that  the  Armenian  Church, 
although  dominated  by  the  lay  element,  is  in  point  of 
doctrine  and  ritual  "extremely  conservative." 

Indeed,  aside  from  color  difference,  there  is  nothing 
like  custom  imitation  to  keep  race  currents  distinct  and 
to  delay  ethnic  assimilation.  Eastern  Europe  and  the 
Orient  is  a  crazy-quilt  of  diverse  races  and  nationalities 
that  evince  no  tendency  to  amalgamate,  because  they  are 
all  under  the  sceptre  of  custom.  Bryce  ^  calls  Tiflis  a 
"strange  mixture  of  many  races,  tongues,  religions,  and 
customs.  Its  character  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  has  no  one 
character,  but  ever  so  many  different  ones.  Here  all  these 
people  live  side  by  side,  buying  and  selling  and  working 
for  hire,  yet  never  coming  into  any  closer  union,  remaining 
indifferent  to  one  another,  with  neither  love  nor  hate,  nor 
ambition,  peaceably  obeying  a  government  of  strangers  — 
and  held  together  by  no  bond  but  its  existence.  Of 
national  life  or  municipal  life  there  is  not  the  first  faint 
glimmering."  Of  Transcaucasia  he  says:^  "Each 
race,  Georgians,  Armenians,  Tatars,  Persians,  Lesghians, 
Mingrelians,  Germans,  Russians,  is  too  weak  numerically 
to  absorb  the  rest,  and  too  distinct  in  religion  and  habits 
to  blend  on  equal  terms  with  any  of  the  others.  This  is  a 
phenomenon  that  constantly  meets  one  in  Eastern  coun- 
tries, being  not  only  a  consequence,  but  a  cause,  of  their 
unprogressi  veness. ' ' 

The  attempt  (1881-1904)  of  the  reactionary  Russifying 
statesmen,  Pobyedonostseff,  Ignatieff,  and  Katkoff,  to 
crush  into  uniformity  the  heterogeneous  national  elements 

^  "Transcaucasia  and  Ararat,"  167-168.  ^  Ibid.,  414. 


CONDITIONS  AFFECTING  SWAY  OF   CUSTOM      241 

incorporated  into  the  Russian  Empire  by  driving  over 
them  Russian  Orthodoxy  and  Czardom  like  an  enormous 
steam  roller,  was  bound  to  fail  because  it  sought  to  sub- 
stitute one  tradition  for  another.  Men  vi^ill  be  boiled  in 
oil  before  they  allow  another  to  clamp  his  traditions  upon 
them.  The  scientific  policy  of  assimilation  aims  to  dis- 
solve the  traditionalism  in  which  the  alien  elements  in 
a  national  population  are  imprisoned  by  getting  them  to 
vibrate  in  a  new  plane,  to  imitate  contemporaries  rather 
than  forefathers.  There  are  five  features  of  Americanism 
which  have  given  the  United  States  a  greater  solvent  power 
than  has  been  shown  by  any  other  nation,  ancient  or 
modern. 

I.  Toleration.  —  Coercion,  unless  crushing,  arouses  re-  Our  way 
sentment  and  race  self-assertion.     Russia's  persecution  of  ^'*.*'^^ 

^  immigrant 

the  Jews  interrupted  the  processes  of  spontaneous  Rus-   "Do  as  you 

sification,  refilled  the  neglected  synagogues,  restored  the  p^^^' 

influence  of  the  rabbis,  and  revived  the  decaying  tribal 

spirit.     Dynamite  can  tear  out  the  ice  gorge  that  chokes 

the  stream  of  progress,  but  toleration  is  the  June  air 

that  will  melt  it.     There  is  the  old  fable  of  the  north  wind 

and  the  sun  vying  to  see  which  could  strip  the  traveller 

of  his  cloak.    The  wind  tugged  at  it,  but  the  wilder  the 

blast,  the  tighter  the  traveller's  grasp.    Then  the  sun  came 

out  and  beamed  till  he  was  glad  to  throw  off  his  cloak. 

The  point  is  that  we  cannot  combine  coercive  assimilation 

with  spontaneous  assimilation.     If  we  made  our  emigrants 

follow  American  ways,  they  would  cease  to  Americanize 

themselves. 

2.  Individualism. — To  Josef  or  Pietro  our  democracy  "Be a 
says,  ''Stand  up  like  a  man!"     His  fellow- workmen  tell 
him,  ''Be  your  own  boss!"     Our  nipping  and  eager  air 


man 


I" 


242 


SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 


"  Look 

ahead ! " 


"Vote 
your  senti- 
ments ! " 


braces  the  immigrants  to  defy  the  commands  of  priest, 
rabbi,  and  padrone,  the  natural  upholders  of  tradition. 
After  four  years  of  it  the  Lithuanian  is  bold  enough  to 
declare:  "When  my  baby  grows  up  I  will  not  send  him  to 
the  Lithuanian  school.  They  have  only  two  bad  rooms 
and  two  priests  who  teach  only  from  Lithuanian  prayer- 
books.  I  will  send  him  to  the  American  school  which  is 
very  big  and  good."  ^ 

3 .  The  Cult  of  Progress.  —  The  custom-bound  immigrant 
finds  himself  among  people  who  ridicule  the  "good  old 
times"  and  have  no  reverence  for  antiquity.  He  is  asked 
in  irony  if  he  wishes  to  go  back  to  the  flail,  the  sickle,  the 
tallow  dip,  and  the  spinning-wheel.  He  is  taught  that  not 
only  nearly  everything  that  makes  him  safe  and  com- 
fortable is  of  recent  origin,  but  that  whatever  is  will  some 
day  be  surpassed.  We  bid  him  look  ahead,  not  back. 
Thus  we  bring  the  newcomers  into  sympathy  with  ourselves 
and  with  one  another  by  turning  their  eyes  from  their 
different  national  pasts  to  one  spot  on  the  horizon  —  the 
Dawn,^  We  cannot  interest  them  in  our  past;  we  can 
interest  them  in  our  future. 

4.  Conferring  of  Political  Rights.  —  Liberality  in  be- 
stowing the  franchise,  though  it  has  diluted  the  electorate, 
has  set  in  motion  Americanizing  forces.  Not  only  is  the 
naturalized  foreigner  the  object  of  much  party  attention 
and  effort,  but  the  exercise  of  the  law-making  power  with 
the  knowledge  it  demands,  the  interest  it  excites,  and  the 
responsibility  it  involves,  tends  to  bring  men  of  different 
nationalities  into  harmonious  unity. 

*  Holt,  "Undistinguished  Americans,"  31. 

^  "Neither  race  nor  tradition,  nor  yet  the  actual  past  binds  the  Ameri- 
can to  his  countrymen,  but  rather  the  future  which  together  they  are 
building."  —  Munsterberg,  "The  Americans,"  5. 


CONDITIONS  AFFECTING   SWAY   OF   CUSTOM      243 

5.  Education.  —  On  one  point  only  is  America  inflexible.  "  Let  us 
"  Dress  as  you  please,  speak  as  you  please,  worship  as  you  ^^^j2dre°p' 
please,  but  you  must  let  us  teach  your  children."  Our 
insistence  on  this  does  not  antagonize  the  stranger,  while 
the  moulding  influences  that  can  be  brought  to  bear  in  the 
school  not  only  detach  the  young  from  the  parental  tra- 
ditions, but  actually  inspire  them  to  become  accomplices 
in  the  Americanizing  of  their  parents. 

Sedentariness  allows  social  life  to  fall  into  ruts.  Long  Contrast  of 
residence  in  a  given  physical  environment  means  sameness  ^nH^tu^"^*^"^ 
of  surroundings,  interests,  occupation,  neighbors,  manner  migrant 
of  life.  Let  a  group  of  pioneers  or  miners  or  immigrants 
settle  down  in  a  locality,  and  in  the  course  of  two  or  three 
generations,  provided  there  is  dearth  of  stimulating  culture 
contacts,  an  invisible  confining  net  of  tradition  spreads 
over  the  community  as  moss  covers  the  undisturbed  log 
or  a  green  mantle  forms  over  stagnant  water.  Migration, 
on  the  other  hand,  often  requires  change  of  dress,  diet, 
style  of  dwelling,  domestic  animals,  occupation,  crops, 
method  of  tillage,  etc.,  in  deference  to  a  climate,  soil, 
mineral  wealth,  commercial  situation,  or  population  den- 
sity, quite  different  from  that  to  which  the  migrant  is 
accustomed.  Such  imperative  adjustments  may  shatter 
the  habit  of  following  ancestral  precedent  and  pave  the 
way  to  a  general  open-mindedness.  This  is  one  reason 
why  those  who  remove  to  new  countries  or  to  cities  show 
such  extraordinary  energy  and  progressiveness.  They 
no  longer  drag  the  ball-and-chain  of  the  past.  This 
explains  why  new  countries  and  colonies  are  such 
daring  path-breakers  in  law   and    government,^  and  by 

^  The  spirit  that  prevails  when  men  from  different  communities  come 
together  to  found  a  new  commonwealth  is  expressed  by  Walker:  "Scarce 


244 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


Fertilizing 
contact  with 
other  socie- 
ties neces- 
sary for 
continued 
progress 


their   example   encourage   older   societies   to  free  them- 
selves. 

A  lack  of  culture  contacts  may  permit  a  society  to  fall 
asleep  in  its  tracks.  Says  Bryce/  in  accounting  for  the 
arrested  development  of  the  Mohammedan  peoples: 
"The  philosophy,  theology,  and  law  of  Islam  have  been 
less  affected  by  external  influences  than  were  those  of 
Christian  Europe.  Greek  literature,  though  a  few 
treatises    were    translated    and    studied    by    some    great 

one  of  these  men  present  at  this  new  founding  but  had  suffered  from  some 
law  or  custom.  One  man,  perhaps  through  the  leaving  out  of  a  portion 
of  the  rigmarole  which  in  older  states  the  law  makes  compulsory  in  a 
conveyance  of  real  property,  had  lost  his  farm  and  home.  When  it 
came  to  the  question  of  conveying  real  estate  in  this  new  country,  he 
declared  that  the  form  must  be  of  the  simplest  character,  something  that 
an  honest  man  could  draw  himself,  if  need  be,  something  that  would 
render  the  legal  exactions  of  the  older  states  impossible.  Another  man, 
who,  in  searching  up  a  title  where  half  a  dozen  or  more  courts  of  record 
serve  to  confuse  the  unwary  purchaser,  had  neglected  one  of  these  and  so 
overlooked  an  important  flaw,  declared  that  he  wanted  but  one  place  of 
record  for  all  transactions,  so  that  the  least  intelligent  citizen  going  there 
and  finding  nothing  against  the  property  he  contemplated  buying  would 
know,  without  the  costly  intervention  of  an  expert,  the  justice  of  his  title. 
"  Another,  who  had  seen  in  some  Southern  state  the  laws  framed  to 
prevent  the  collection  of  mortgages,  in  the  interest  of  those  who  are 
already  debtors,  and  the  consequent  shutting  out  of  that  section  from  the 
money  markets  of  the  world,  declared  that  he  must  have  a  law  so  clear 
and  explicit  in  its  construction  that,  if  it  should  become  necessary  for  him 
to  borrow  money  with  which  to  make  improvements,  the  loaner  would 
have  no  question  to  consider  other  than  the  value  of  the  securities  involved. 
Still  another,  who  had  seen  the  injustice  perpetrated  through  the  inability 
of  married  women  to  hold  separate  estate,  claimed  a  position  for  her  in 
this  new  government  of  equality  with  man  in  the  ownership  of  property, 
thereby  simplifying  the  legal  relations  of  the  sexes  and  doing  away  with 
the  complicated  wife's  dower.  The  men  present  from  all  these  states 
and  territories  stood  each  ready  to  see  that  the  most  modern  ideas  ad- 
vanced in  his  own  section  should  be  incorporated  into  the  constitution 
and  laws  of  the  new  state."  —  Cosmopolitan,  g,  p.  63. 
^  "  Studies  in  History  and  Jurisprudence,"  II,  235. 


CONDITIONS   AFFECTING   SWAY   OF   CUSTOM      245 

thinkers,  told  with  no  such  power  upon  the  general  move- 
ment of  Mussulman  thought  as  it  did  in  Europe,  and  nota- 
bly in  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries;  and  Greek 
influence  among  Muslims,  instead  of  growing,  seems  to 
have  passed  away."  "There  has  been  in  the  Mussul- 
man world  an  absence  of  the  fertilizing  contact  and  in- 
vigorating conflict  of  different  nationalities  with  their 
diverse  gifts  and  tendencies.  Islam  is  a  tremendous 
denationalizing  force  and  has  done  much  to  reduce  the 
Eastern  world  to  a  monotonous  uniformity.  The  Turks 
seem  to  be  a  race  intellectually  sterile,  and  like  the  peoples 
of  North  Africa  in  earlier  days,  they  did  not,  when  they 
accepted  the  religion  of  Arabia,  give  to  its  culture  any  such 
new  form  or  breathe  into  it  any  such  new  spirit  as  did  the 
Teutonic  races  when  they  embraced  the  religion  and 
assimilated  the  literature  of  the  Roman  world." 

War  has  been,  perhaps,  the  greatest  producer  of  fructi-  Conquest 
fying  culture  contacts.     Ward  ^  points  out  that  "the  cross  restores dif- 

J      o  r  ference  of 

fertilization  of  cultures  is  to  sociology  what  the  cross  potential 
fertilization  of  germs  is  to  biology.  A  culture  is  a  social 
structure,  a  social  organism,  if  any  one  prefers,  and  ideas 
are  its  germs.  These  may  be  mixed  or  crossed,  and  the 
effect  is  the  same  as  that  of  crossing  hereditary  strains. 
The  process  by  which  the  greater  part  of  this  has  been 
accomplished,  at  least  in  the  early  history  of  human 
society,  is  the  struggle  of  races."  "  A  race  of  men  may  be 
looked  upon  as  a  physical  system  possessing  a  large 
amount  of  potential  energy,  but  often  having  reached  such 
a  complete  state  of  equilibrium  that  it  is  incapable  of 
performing  any  but  the  normal  functions  of  growth  and 
multiplication."     But  "by  sheer  force  of  circumstance, 

*  "Pure  Sociology,"  235. 


246 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


Warfare 
brings  for- 
ward the 
bold  experi- 
menter and 
innovator 


by  the  exuberant  fertility  of  mankind,  by  the  pushing  out 
of  boundaries  to  avoid  overcrowding,  by  wanderings  and 
migrations,  different  races,  charged  with  potential  energy 
locked  up  in  varied  cults  and  customs,  tongues  and  ten- 
dencies, experience  wholly  fortuitous  encounters  and 
collisions,  resulting  in  conflicts  and  conquests,  whereby  all 
these  divergent  idea-germs  are  first  hurled  promiscuously 
together  and  then  rudely  jostled  and  stirred  into  a  hetero- 
geneous menstruum  that  tends  to  polarize  on  the  social 
spindle,  but  ultimately  blends."  ^  "  For  all  primitive  and 
early  undeveloped  races,  certainly,  the  condition  of  peace 
is  a  condition  of  social  stagnation."  ^ 

Jenks  says:^  "Real  war  is  a  death  struggle,  and  each 
combatant  will  strain  every  nerve  to  gain  the  advantage. 
If  any  one  will  show  him  a  new  dodge  for  defeating  his 
enemy,  he  will  take  it  and  be  thankful.  He  will  not  ask  if 
it  is  consecrated  by  the  wisdom  of  his  ancestors."  He 
points  out  that  the  state  when  it  first  replaced  the  tribe  was 
untraditional.  "The  founders  of  the  State  were  all  suc- 
cessful warriors,  who  had  won  success  by  new  combina- 
tions, new  methods,  daring  disregard  of  tradition.  It  was 
hardly  probable  that,  under  their  regime,  the  old  tradi- 
tional, customary  life  would  be  continued.  Their  watch- 
word was  ability,  not  custom."  "  All  over  Europe  the 
break-up  of  patriarchal  society  is  marked  by  a  striking 
change  in  the  idea  of  nobility.  The  old  nobility  of  birth 
and  wealth,  the  members  of  the  sacred  families  of  the  tribe 
and  clan,  the  great  lords  of  cattle,  are  replaced  by  the 
royal  nobility,  whose  hall-mark  is  the  choice  of  the  king." 


*  "  Pure  Sociology,"  236. 

3  "History  of  Politics,"  79. 


^Ihid.,  238. 


CONDITIONS  AFFECTING   SWAY  OF  CUSTOM      247 

Morris*  points  out  how  war  promotes  progress.  "An 
isolated  nation  is  in  the  same  position  as  an  isolated  in- 
dividual. Its  experiences  are  limited,  its  ideas  few  and 
narrow  in  range.  Its  thoughts  move  in  one  fixed  channel, 
and  the  other  powers  of  its  mind  are  apt  to  become  virtually- 
aborted."  "  Yet  peace,  in  all  barbarian  and  semi- 
civilized  nations,  seems  to  tend  strongly  toward  this  condi- 
tion of  isolation;  and  such  isolation  in  its  conservative 
influence  is  a  fatal  bar  to  any  wide  or  continuous  progress. 
The  long  persistence  of  one  form  of  government,  of  one 
condition  of  social  customs,  of  one  line  of  thought,  tends 
to  produce  that  uniformity  of  character  which  is  so  fatally 
opposed  to  any  width  of  development  or  breadth  of  mental 
grasp.  From  uniformity  arises  stagnation."  "  Variety 
of  influences  and  conditions  alone  can  yield  a  healthy  and 
vigorous  growth  of  thought.  The  movement  of  the  na- 
tional mind  in  any  one  line  must  soon  cease.  Its  limit 
is  quickly  reached,  unless  it  be  aided  by  development  in 
other  directions."  "  Were  nations,  after  attaining  the 
limit  of  progress  in  their  special  lines,  to  be  thoroughly- 
mingled,  each  falling  heir  to  the  mental  growth  of  all  the 
others,  a  sudden  and  rapid  intellectual  progress  might 
well  be  achieved,  hosts  of  new  ideas  arising  from  this 
grand  influx  of  new  experiences.  In  barbarian  and  semi- 
civilized  communities  such  an  intermingling  proceeds  but 
slowly  in  times  of  peace.  A  certain  degree  of  intercom- 
merce  and  of  emigration  may  exist.  But  emigration  under 
barbarian  conditions  does  not  usually  bring  peoples  into 
contact,  except  it  be  the  harsh  contact  of  war.  The  only 
peaceful  contact  is  the  commercial  one.  Merchants, 
undoubtedly,  in  early  times  penetrated  foreign  tribes  and 

*  Popular  Science  Monthly,  ^y,  pp.  826-831  passim. 


248 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


In  primitive 
times  no 
contact  of 
peoples 
except 


nations,  and  brought  home,  in  addition  to  their  wares, 
stories  of  what  they  had  seen  and  learned  abroad.  But 
the  merchants  were  too  few,  too  ignorant  and  prejudiced, 
and  too  little  given  to  observation,  to  spread  much  useful 
information  in  this  way ;  and  their  peoples  were  too  self- 
satisfied  to  give  up  any  customs  and  beliefs  of  their  own 
for  those  thus  brought  them. 

"  How,  then,  could  any  effective  result  from  national 
contact  be  produced  ?  In  primitive  times  the  only  effective 
agency  must  have  been  that  of  war.  Destructive  as  this  is 
through  war  ^^  i^s  rcsults,  it  has  the  one  useful  effect  of  thoroughly 
commingling  diverse  peoples,  bringing  them  into  the 
closest  contact  with  each  other,  and  forcing  upon  the 
attention  of  each  the  advantages  possessed  by  the  other. 
The  caldron  of  human  society  must  be  set  boiling  before  its 
contents  can  fully  mingle  and  combine.  War  is  a  furnace 
in  which  this  ebullition  takes  place,  and  through  whose 
activity  human  ideas  are  forced  to  circulate  through  and 
through  the  minds  of  men. 

"  But  there  is  a  special  cause  that  renders  war  peculiarly 
effective  in  this  direction.  In  every  war  there  are  two 
peoples  to  be  considered,  the  invaders  and  the  invaded. 
The  latter  remains  at  home,  on  the  defensive,  its  govern- 
ment intact,  its  prejudices  condensed  by  hatred  of  the 
invaders,  its  people  strongly  bent  on  both  mental  and 
material  resistance.  The  invaders,  on  the  contrary,  not 
only  leave  their  country  behind  them,  but  they  leave  its 
laws  and  conditions  as  well.  They  march  under  new 
skies,  over  new  soils,  through  new  climates.  They  come 
into  the  closest  contact  with  new  customs,  laws,  and  condi- 
tions. And  their  local  prejudices  only  partially  march 
with  them.     The  laws  of  the  peaceful  state  are  abrogated 


Warfare 
breaks  up 
habit 


CONDITIONS   AFFECTING   SWAY   OF   CUSTOM      249 

in  the  army.  Its  members  are  brought  under  other  laws 
and  disciplines.  Religious  influences  weaken.  A  sense 
of  liberty  fills  the  mind  of  the  soldier ;  expectancy  arises ; 
new  hopes  and  fears  are  engendered ;  the  old  quiet  devo- 
tion to  law  becomes  a  tendency  to  license. 

"Thus  the  mind  of  the  soldier  is  m  a  state  essentially  A  career  of 
unlike  that  of  the  peaceful  citizen."     "  It  is  in  a  state  ^""^^^^ 

.         ,  _  emancipates 

rendermg  it  a  quick  and  ready  solvent  of  new  experiences,  a  people 
All  its  fixity  of  ideas  is  broken  up,  the  deep  foundations  of  ^^'^  "'^^'''^ 
its  prejudices  are  shaken,  it  is  in  a  receptive  condition; 
fresh  thoughts  readily  pass  the  broken  barriers  of  its 
reserve."  "  For  this  reason  we  find  races  which  have 
dwelt  long  in  self-satisfied  barbarism  suddenly  leaping  into 
civilization  when  they  assume  the  role  of  conquerors. 
The  savage  hordes  of  Timur  developed,  in  a  few  genera- 
tions, into  the  comparatively  civilized  Mogul  people  of 
India.  From  the  Saxon  pirates  who  conquered  England 
an  Alfred  the  Great  soon  arose. 

"  Thus  the  world  progressed  through  its  long  ages  of  War  com- 
partial   civilization.     The   combined   experiences   of   the  °ii"giesthe 

^  products  of 

members  of  the  tribe  yielded  a  certain  degree  of  advance-  local  and 
ment,  and  there  stopped.     Each  tribe  differed  from  all  ^"^''^^^- 

'  ^  ^  velopment 

Others  to  the  extent  that  its  experiences  and  their  resulting 
ideas  differed.  During  peace  the  tribes  repelled  each 
other  and  remained  intact,  each  with  its  special  form  of 
mental  progress.  In  war  they  overflowed  each  other, 
greatly  diversified  thoughts  and  habits  were  brought  into 
intimate  contact,  new  ideas  were  engendered  from  the 
mixture,  new  forms  of  civilization  arose.  And  as  war  was 
almost  incessant,  so  these  new  products  of  thought  were 
constantly  brought  into  existence.  Nomads  became 
agriculturists  through  conquest ;  but  the  habits  and  ideas 


250 


SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 


But  pro- 
longed war- 
fare may 
overload  a 
society  with 
structure 


gained  in  a  nomadic  life  mingled  with  those  of  the  con- 
quered agriculturists,  and  yielded  a  new  and  superior 
result."  "  Mountaineers  brought  down  their  ideas  to 
combine  them  with  those  born  of  the  plain.  Deserts  and 
river  valleys  poured  their  common  thought  results  into 
new  and  more  comprehensive  minds.  The  great  ebullition 
went  on.  East  mingled  with  west,  north  with  south, 
mountain  with  plain,  seashore  with  interior ;  men's  thoughts 
fused  and  boiled  incessantly ;  new  compounds  constantly 
appeared ;  the  range  of  ideas  grew  wider  and  higher ;  and 
mental  development  steadily  advanced  —  though  over 
the  ruins  of  empires  and  through  the  ashes  of  man's  most 
valued  possessions." 

But  prolonged  warfare,  especially  with  those  of  a 
different  religion,  may  so  aggrandize  and  intrench  the  great 
conservative  structures.  State  and  Church,  that  individual- 
ity is  stifled  and  development  is  arrested.  Eight  centuries 
of  fighting  against  the  Moors  so  imbued  Spain  with  blind 
loyalty  and  fanatical  orthodoxy  that  she  finally  became 
dead  to  the  progress  of  the  world. ^  Again,  geographical 
remoteness  may  cut  off  a  people  from  external  stimuli. 
Says  Sheffield^  of  China:  "The  first  cause  of  arrested 
development  that  may  be  mentioned  is  the  wide  separation 
of  China  from  other  great  centres  of  civilization,  which 
deprived  Chinese  thought  in  its  formative  period  of  the 
inspiration  that  would  have  been  derived  from  the  inflow 
of  fresh  ideas.  Buddhism  entered  China  at  the  beginning 
of  the  Christian  era.  Mohammedanism  and  Nestorianism 
followed  in  the  seventh  and  eighth  centuries;    but  this 


^  See  Buckle's    eloquent    indictment,  "History  of    Civilization,"  II, 
121-122. 

*  Forum,  29,  p.  590. 


CONDITIONS  AFFECTING  SWAY   OF   CUSTOM      251 

was  long  after  the    formative  period  of  Chinese  social 
life." 

Familism  fosters  conservative  feeling.  Family  roof-  Family  loy- 
trees,  portrait  galleries,  heirlooms,  visits  and  reunions,  down'tL 
attention  to  family  and  local  history,  emphasis  on  genealogy  individual 
and  relationship,  open  channels  for  the  descent  of  family 
traditions  and  create  a  sentiment  for  the  past.  The 
sacrifice  of  individual  inclination  to  family  considerations 
often  amounts  to  a  sacrifice  of  the  living  to  the  dead. 
When  the  hero  of  "Coningsby"  took  it  into  his  head  to 
form  a  deliberate  conviction,  his  grandfather  cried, 
"  You  go  with  your  family,  sir,  like  a  gentleman ;  you  are 
not  to  consider  your  opinions,  like  a  philosopher  or  a 
political  adventurer."  Aristocracies  always  magnify  line- 
age, ancestral  achievement,  and  family  honors  and  privi- 
leges, so  that,  quite  aside  from  the  dictate  of  their  class 
interests,  they  cannot  help  imbibing  the  conservative  spirit. 
The  middle  and  working  classes,  lacking  time  and 
means  for  cultivating  these  sentiments,  let  their  thought 
and  feeling  be  shaped  by  present  facts  rather  than  ancient 
facts,  and  are  therefore  the  mainstay  of  liberalism  and 
reform.  Note  how,  in  our  South,  familism,  fostered  by 
the  aforetime  aristocratic  spirit  engendered  by  the  slave 
regime,  goes  hand-in-hand  with  ultra-conservatism.  What-  Dissolution 
ever  makes  the  support  of  one's  kin  group  less  needful  —  of  the  km 

J^^  or  group  makes 

protection  by  public  authorities  rather  than  by  fellow-  forindi- 
clansmen,  education  at  the  public  expense,  public  poor  jom'^inr^' 
relief,  facilities  for  life  insurance  —  undermines  it.     The  initiative 
universal  westward  migration  that  prevailed  during  the 
settlement  of  our  country,  by  incessantly  snapping  ties 
between    blood    relatives    and    thereby    weakening    clan 
feeling,  helped  to  individualize  Americans  and  has  un- 


252  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

doubtedly  been  a  factor  in  their  progressiveness.  There 
are  signs,  however,  that  familism  is  on  the  increase  in  the 
United  States/  and,  if  so,  conservatism  will  grow. 

SUMMARY 

Among  the  factors  that  favor  custom  imitation  may  be  dis- 
tinguished: ancestor  worship;  giving  authority  and  direction  to  the 
old;  hypertrophy  of  regulative  organizations,  such  as  State  and 
Church;  physical  isolation;  linguistic  isolation;  social  isolation; 
house-life;  illiteracy;  reverence  for  an  ancient  sacred  book;  the 
clannishness  of  oppressed  groups ;  coercive  methods  of  assimilation ; 
sedentariness;  lack  of  culture  contacts;  familism. 

Among  the  factors  that  oppose  custom  imitation  may  be  dis- 
tinguished :  giving  authority  and  direction  to  the  young ;  improved 
means  of  communication ;  the  substitution  of  a  national  language 
for  a  dialect,  or  patois ;  civil  and  social  equality;  guest-friendship; 
the  admission  of  women  to  activities  and  association  outside  the 
home ;  literacy ;  diffusion  of  education ;  freedom  of  discussion ;  free- 
dom of  investigation ;  attractive  methods  of  assimilation ;  travel  and 
migration;  war  and  conquest;  individualization. 

EXERCISES 

1.  Show  how  the  rise  of  romantic  love  helps  emancipate  society 
from  the  past. 

2.  What  are  the  effects  upon  woman  of  restricting  her  to  the 
home  "  sphere  "  ? 

3.  Is  it  well  to  regard  some  topics  as  too  "  sacred  "  to  be  discussed 
at  all? 

4.  Contrast  lay  control  and  clerical  control  of  a  church  in  their 
effect  on  its  conservatism. 

*  Craze  for  genealogy  and  heraldry,  manifest  ambition  of  multi- 
millionnaires  to  transmute  themselves  into  aristocrats  by  acquiring  the 
necessary  lineage,  rage  for  hereditary  patriotic  societies  such  as  Society 
of  Mayfiower  Descendants,  Society  of  Colonial  Wars,  Society  of  Colo- 
nial Dames  of  America,  National  Society  of  Colonial  Dames,  Founders 
and  Patriots  of  America,  Daughters  of  the  Revolution,  Daughters  of 
the  American  Revolution,  Sons  of  Revolutionary  Sires,  etc. 


CONDITIONS  AFFECTING   SWAY   OF   CUSTOM      253 

5.  Compare  in  point  of  flexibility:  a  religion  based  on  a  revela- 
tion of  the  Divine  Will  completed  in  ancient  writings;  one  based  on 
a  continuing  revelation  through  an  ecclesiastical  organization ;  one 
based  on  such  revelation  as  may  from  time  to  time  be  vouchsafed 
through  individuals. 

6.  Contrast  the  laboratory  method  with  the  text-book  method  in 
forming  the  open  interrogative  mind. 

7.  Why  should  the  college  curriculum  give  more  place  to  the 
forming  sciences —  bacteriology,  psychology,  economics,  sociology  — 
than  to  the  well-settled  sciences? 

8.  Does  the  science  of  history  foster  the  conservative  spirit? 

9.  What  is  the  tendency,  in  this  respect,  of  the  study  of  literary 
masterpieces  ? 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE   FIELDS   OF  CUSTOM   IMITATION 

Custom  niies  There  appear  to  be  certain  fields  of  life,  such  as  in- 
mentroriife  dustry,  business,  and  the  advancement  of  science,  where 
merit  rules;  other  fields,  like  dress,  personal  adornment, 
display,  luxury,  equipage,  and  amusements,  which  are  the 
happy  hunting-grounds  of  novelty;  and,  finally,  certain 
fields,  like  language,  ceremony,  ritual,  worship,  govern- 
ment, relations  of  races,  sexes,  and  classes,  in  which  custom 
prevails.  These  last  are  the  fossil-bearing  strata  of  society, 
the  relic-yielding,  river-drift  caves.  No  other  fields  yield 
so  much  to  the  explorer  in  quest  of  materials  for  recon- 
structing the  past. 

If  we  investigate  why  custom  rules  in  one  department  of 
life  and  not  in  another,  we  come  upon  certain  general 
truths. 

I.  A  survival  is  not  kicked  aside  until  it  gets  in  the 
way. 

Just  as  a  settler  tolerates  the  stumps  in  the  pasture  till 
he  wants  to  plough  it  up,  so  we  put  up  with  the  debris  of 
the  past  until  it  seriously  incommodes  us ;  then  we  clear 
it  away.  In  India  caste  lines  are  held  rigid  until  railway 
eating-houses  come  in.  Then,  when  it  is  eat  with  the  low- 
caste  man  or  go  hungry,  the  caste  lines  begin  to  bend. 
Ganges  water  is  religiously  drunk  till  modern  sanitation 

254 


THE   FIELDS   OF  CUSTOM   IMITATION         255 

provides  a  supply  of  better  water  near  at  hand.  On  the 
same  principle  a  vestigial  organ  —  pineal  gland,  third 
eyelid,  vermiform  appendix  —  held  in  the  firm  clasp  of 
heredity,  is  reproduced  indefinitely  until  a  moment  comes 
when  it  begins  seriously  to  hinder  survival ;  then  natural 
selection  seizes  upon  it  and  roots  it  up.^  Now,  effete 
customs  cannot  live  on  in  a  field  like  warfare,  where  the  Where  there 
spearmen  who  come  out  against  Catlings  perish  and  with  competition 
them  their  belated  style  of  fighting ;  or  industry,  where  custom  can- 
those  who  cling  to  the  hand-tool  in  the  age  of  the  machine 
starve ;  or  business,  where  the  merchant  who  does  without 
telephone,  typewriter,  or  the  loose-leaf  system  fails;  or 
the  professions,  where  resistance  to  the  use  of  ether  or 
anti-toxin  brings  ruin.  In  all  such  fields  it  is  not  necessary 
that  all  become  open-minded.  Competition  forces  the 
pace.  If  one  out  of  twenty  is  progressive  enough  to  adopt 
the  happy  innovation,  the  other  nineteen  are  obliged  to 
follow  suit  or  abandon  the  field  entirely.  Even  religion 
starts  forward  under  this  spur,  and  the  interdenominational 
rivalry  for  members  and  popular  favor  obliges  conserva- 
tives themselves  to  lower  the  bars  of  creed.  On  the  other 
hand,  fields  like  ceremony  (curtsey,  wedding,  coronation), 
festivals  (Hallowe'en,  St.  Valentine's  Day,  rolling  Easter 

*  "The  habit  of  keeping  provisions  stored  up  within  the  fortified 
church  walls,  to  this  day  extant  in  most  Saxon  villages  [of  Transyl- 
vania], is  clearly  a  remnant  of  the  time  when  sieges  had  to  be  looked  for. 
Even  now  the  people  seem  to  consider  their  goods  to  be  in  greater  security 
here  than  in  their  own  barns  and  lofts.  The  outer  fortified  wall  around 
the  church  is  often  divided  into  deep  recesses  or  alcoves,  in  each  of  which 
stands  a  large  wooden  chest  securely  locked,  and  filled  with  grain  or 
flour,  while  the  little  surrounding  turrets  or  chapels  are  used  as  store- 
houses for  home-cured  bacon."  —  Gerard,  "The  Land  beyond  the 
Forest,"  67H58. 

No  doubt  a  few  bad  seasons  would  break  up  this  wasteful  custom. 


256  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

eggs),  forms  of  address  (Madam  =  My  lady,  Good-by  = 
God  be  with  you),  modes  of  spelling,  riddles,  proverbs, 
and  everything  pertaining  to  children  (lullabies.  Mother 
Goose,  "  King's  x  ,"  "  King's  Cruse,"  "  Tit-tat-toe  "),  being 
untested  by  competition,  are  full  of  survivals.  Govern- 
ment departments,  missing  the  enlivening  prick  of  compe- 
tition, cling  to  antiquated  procedure.  The  commonplace, 
uneducated  v^oman  is  ingenious,  experimental,  and  open 
to  novelty,  only  during  the  brief  period  when  she  is  com- 
peting with  other  maidens  for  masculine  favor.  Once 
she  has  achieved  a  fixed  status  as  wife  she  is  probably 
content  to  do  as  her  mother  did. 

The  alcoves        2.   Custom  YuUs  in  the  less  accessihU  fields. 

of  social  life        j^  ^^iq  recesscs  of  the  home,  live  on  practices  that  could 

become  cob-  '  ^ 

webbed  with  not  endure  the  open  air.     The  way  a  man  tills  his  field 
custom  -g  jjjQj-g  subject  to  invidious  comparison  than  the  way 

a  woman  washes  her  dishes  or  cares  for  her  babies.  Cook- 
ery, kitchen  utensils,  table  manners,  personal  ablutions, 
courtship,  christening,  nameday  and  birthday  observances, 
family  ceremonies  and  festivals,  are  ruled  by  tradition 
because  they  are  private.  So  long  as  the  making  of 
garments  is  a  household  art,  costume  may  show  great 
stability.  Thus,  some  believe  that  the  shaggy  sheepskin 
mantle  and  the  close-fitting  woollens  of  the  Bulgarians 
still  hint,  amid  the  vine  and  the  olive,  of  the  bleak  Central 
Asian  home  of  the  race. 

3.   Collective    habits    are   more   stable   than   individual 
habits. 
When  tied  The  reason  is  that  they  cannot  be  dropped  by  man  after 

together  men  j^j^^    but  must  await  Concerted  abandonment  or  modi- 

lollow  the  [ 

beaten  track    fication.     However   bad   the   old   highway   has   become, 
no  single  teamster  can  afford  to  survey  a  road  for  himself; 


THE   FIELDS   OF   CUSTOM   IMITATION         257 

yet  it  may  be  long  before  a  sufficient  number  can  be  brought 
to  cooperate  in  building  a  new  highway/ 

'  This  persistence  of  the  superannuated  until  men  are  ready  to  make 
a  collective  effort  for  reform  is  hit  ofE  in  Sam  Foss's  poem :  — 

"THE  CALF  PATH 

"  One  day,  through  a  primeval  wood, 
A  calf  walked  home  as  good  calves  should, 
And  left  a  trail  all  bent  askew, 
A  crooked  trail,  as  all  calves  do. 

"  Since  then  two  hundred  years  have  fled, 
And  I  infer  the  calf  is  dead. 
But  still  he  left  behind  his  trail. 
And  thereby  hangs  my  moral  tale. 

"  The  trail  was  taken  up  next  day 
By  a  lone  dog  that  passed  that  way; 
And  then  a  wise  bell-wether  sheep 
Pursued  the  trail  o'er  dale  and  steep, 
And  led  his  flock  behind  him,  too. 
As  good  bell-wethers  always  do. 

"And  from  that  day,  o'er  hill  and  glade. 
Through  those  old  woods  a  path  was  made, 
And  many  men  wound  in  and  out, 
And  bent  and  turned  and  crooked  about. 
And  uttered  words  of  righteous  wrath. 
Because  'twas  such  a  crooked  path. 

"  But  still  they  followed  —  do  not  laugh   — 
The  first  migrations  of  that  calf, 
And  through  this  winding  woodway  stalked 
Because  he  wobbled  when  he  walked." 

He  proceeds  to  tell  us  that  the  path  became  a  lane,  and  that  the  lane 
became  a  road,  where  many  a  poor  horse  toiled  on  with  his  load  beneath 
the  burning  sun  and  travelled  some  three  miles  in  one. 

"And  men  in  two  centuries  and  a  half 
Trod  in  the  footsteps  of  that  calf. 
For  men  are  prone  to  go  it  blind. 
Along  the  calf-ways  of  the  mind, 
And  work  away  from  sun  to  sun. 
To  do  as  other  men  have  done." 
s 


258 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


Festivals  of 
remote  origin 
are  usually 
of  wide  ob- 
servance 


On  the  survival  of  criminal  festivals,  Fererro  *  remarks : 
"We  see,  therefore,  that  collective  crime  has  opposed 
a  greater  resistance  than  individual  crime  to  the  progress 
of  civilization.  But  why  have  these  criminal  festivals 
endured  so  long,  while  individual  customs  have  been 
undergoing  transformation?"  "A  crowd  of  men  is 
always  more  afraid  of  the  new,  more  conservative,  than 
are  the  men  who  compose  it.  For  that  reason  a  usage 
is  more  stable  and  less  subject  to  variation  in  proportion 
to  the  number  of  men  who  observe  it."  "  Every  one 
can  observe  that  it  is  easy  for  a  man  to  change  his  in- 
dividual habits,  but  that  the  habits  of  a  family,  being 
more  fixed,  are  changed  with  greater  difficulty."  "  But 
fixed  as  family  customs  are,  they  are  unstable  enough 
if  we  compare  them  to  the  usages  of  large  aggregates, 
to  the  whole  population  of  a  city,  for  example.  In  all 
Europe,  in  Italy,  France,  and  Germany,  some  of  the 
cities  still  celebrate  the  festivals  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
occasionally  even  Roman  festivals,  which  plunge  a  whole 
population  every  year  into  the  past  again.  The  costumes, 
the  banners,  and  the  signals,  everything  in  these  festivals 
is  old,  and  no  one  would  be  satisfied  to  use  anything 
modern  in  them,  for  all  their  beauty  would  then  seem  to 
vanish.  We  find  yet  more  superannuated  usages  when 
we  consider  still  larger  human  aggregates;  for  while  in 
the  usages  of  a  city  we  find  survivals  of  its  history,  in  the 
usages  common  to  all  civilized  men  we  find  survivals 
of  the  ancient  primitive  life,  customs  which  appertain  to 
the  savage  period.  Of  such,  for  example,  is  the  worship 
of  ancestors."  "  The  rites  relating  to  it  have  been 
nearly  entirely  abandoned,  yet  these  rites,  which  exist  no 

*  Popular  Science  Monthly,  43,  pp.  762-765. 


THE  FIELDS   OF   CUSTOM  IMITATION         259 

longer  in  individual  practice,  still  survive  as  a  general 
usage  among  all  Roman  Catholic  peoples,  for  the  cere- 
mony of  the  day  of  the  dead  is  nothing  else  than  a 
survival  from  the  ancient  ancestral  religion. 

"A  mass  of  men  is  thus  always  more  afraid  of  novelty  what  men 
than  the  men  that  compose  it:    these  may  change  their  j^yXaiir' 
feelings  and  their  ideas,  but  they  come  together ;  the  feel-  vanishes 
ings  and  ideas  acquired  by  the  individuals  will  have  no  whrt'they  ° 
influence,   or  but   little,   upon   their   conduct.     What   is  must  quit 
the    cause    of    this    contradiction?     Man  .  .  .  hates    all  ^°^^  ^ 
novelty  and  tries  to  preserve  everything  that  exists  —  his 
ideas  and  feelings  —  so  long  as  he  can,  without  changing 
them.     Yet,  when  very  strong  necessities  urge  him,  man 
.  .  .  changes  his  habits  and  his  ideas,  and  rebels  against 
institutions  and  laws  he  had  once  venerated;    but  it  is 
always  a   painful   task,   a  disagreeable   effort   for  every 
man.  .  .  .     Difficult   as   this   change   may   be   for   each 
man,  it  is  still  more  so  when  a  collective  usage  is  con- 
cerned;  for  then  the  opinion  of  all  the  other  men  to  the 
same  effect  and  imitation  reenforce  the  neophoby  natural 
to   man.     The   struggle   is  not  only  against   one's  own 
conservative  instincts,  but  also  against  the  fear  of  being 
alone  in  neglecting  a  usage  which  all  others  observe.^ 
For  these  usages  to  pass  away  there  must,  therefore,  be 
causes   acting   upon  the  whole   mass  of  those  who  ob- 
serve  them,  producing  gradual   decadence.     Now   these 
causes  would  naturally  act  more  slowly  than  those  which 
produce  individual  changes  of  manners,  ideas,  etc. ;  they 

'  Says  an  Igorrote  chief  :  "The  Americans  don't  like  us  to  take  heads, 
but  what  can  we  do?  Other  people  take  heads  from  us.  We  have 
always  done  it.  The  women  won't  marry  our  men  if  they  do  not  take 
heads." —  Holt,  "Undistinguished  Americans,"  227. 


26o 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


Immigrants 
quit  their 
personal 
ways  sooner 
than  their 
communal 
ways 


will  act  more  slowly,  too,  as  the  aggregate  of  men  subject 
to  their  influence  is  greater. 

"  So  the  genesis  of  criminal  festivals  is  explained.  When 
crimes  become  the  object  of  legal  repression  and  then 
of  moral  repulsion,  men  begin,  each  on  his  own  ac- 
count, to  abstain  from  committing  them.  .  .  .  But  these 
criminal  festivals,  to  which  the  ancient  liberty  and  the 
ancient  glory  of  crime  have  given  rise,  being  usages  com- 
mon to  a  whole  tribe  or  people,  enjoy  the  advantage  of 
the  greater  stability  in  collective  usages.  .  .  .  Thus, 
the  Dahomeyan,  who  is  no  longer  a  cannibal,  becomes 
an  anthropophagist  again  in  the  great  public  festivals 
that  are  celebrated  after  a  victory;  the  East  Indians 
slay  men  upon  the  foundations  of  a  palace,  but  only 
when  great  public  edifices  are  a-building ;  and  the  inhabit- 
ants of  Sumatra,  gentle  enough  in  their  ordinary  customs, 
solemnly  eat  their  old  men,  in  the  belief  that  they  are 
thereby  observing  the  most  sacred  of  their  duties  as  sons." 

Roberts  ^  shows  that  in  the  coal  regions  the  Sclavs  do 
not  Americanize  their  corporate  practices  as  rapidly 
as  their  individual  practices.  "The  Sclav  religiously 
observes  the  days  on  which  the  saints  are  commemorated 
and  invariably  takes  a  holiday.  On  sacred  seasons  of 
the  year,  such  as  Easter  and  Christmas,  they  are  at  great 
trouble  to  commemorate  the  historical  events  which  form 
the  basis  of  the  Christian  religion.  On  Easter,  tombs 
are  constructed  in  churches  and  a  semi-military  religious 
organization  associated  with  the  Church  assigns  quater- 
nions of  its  members  to  guard  them.  Relays  succeed 
each  other  for  a  period  equal  to  that  during  which  Christ  is 
said  to  have  remained  in  the  grave.     On  Easter  also  mem- 

i  ^  "  Anthracite  Coal  Communities,"  54-55. 


THE   FIELDS    OF   CUSTOM    IMITATION  261 

bers  carry  baskets  laden  with  provisions  to  the  Church 
that  the  priest  may  bless  them,  and  when  they  are  brought 
home  again  the  family  sit  down  to  the  consecrated  feast. 
At  Christmas  time,  members  of  the  Church  go  from  door 
to  door  carrying  emblems  of  the  nativity  and  recite  the 
story  of  the  miraculous  birth.  Accompanying  them  are 
grotesque  figures,  representing  the  enemies  of  the  Church, 
which  add  mirth  to  the  visitations.  These  parties  take 
up  collections  which  are  turned  over  to  the  priest.  On 
Easter  and  Christmas  a  solemn  procession  is  formed, 
when  sacred  relics  are  carried,  and  the  members,  chanting, 
march  around  the  church  or  along  the  aisles.  On  Ascen- 
sion Day  branches  of  trees  are  cut  down  and  hung  over 
the  doors  of  the  houses  and  around  the  pictures  of  sacred 
personages  in  the  homes." 

"As  the  Sclavs  gain  in  numbers  and  confidence  they  give 
greater  publicity  to  their  native  customs  and  peculiarities. 
Troops  of  men  will,  on  idle  days,  amuse  themselves  by 
playing  a  childish  game  which  affords  them  much  amuse- 
ment. They  carry  charms  and  sacred  relics  with  greater 
publicity  than  they  did  in  former  years.  They  do  not 
enjoy  their  frolics  and  weddings  with  the  same  privacy 
as  in  the  early  years  of  their  life  in  the  coal  fields."  "Last 
Fourth  of  July,  a  company  of  Tyrolese  paraded  the  streets 
with  a  hand-cart  drawn  by  men,  in  which  was  placed 
a  barrel  of  lager.  Over  it  stood  a  comrade,  goblet  in 
hand  and  crowned  with  a  garland  of  laurels,  singing 
some  jargon,  while  sitting  on  the  rear  end  of  the  vehicle 
was  another  fellow  with  an  accordion.  Along  the  streets 
they  marched  to  the  strains  of  music  and  at  intervals 
they  stopped  to  drink  the  good  beverage  they  celebrated 
in  song.     It  was  an  imitation  of  the  honor  paid  Bacchus 


262  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

which  was  one  of  the  most  joyous  festivities  of  ancient 
Rome."  The  greater  obstinacy  of  the  drinking  of  liquor 
at  banquets  or  in  "treating"  than  in  private  drinking 
is  another  illustration  of  the  principle. 

4.  Habits  of  consumption  are  more  stable  than  habits 
of  production. 
Mode  of  life  There  are  a  number  of  reasons  for  this.  The  former, 
mwe^sLwi  being  more  private,  are  less  subject  to  unfavorable  com- 
than  manner  parison  and  criticism.  Competition  obliges  one  to  change 
his  ways  of  producing,  but  not  his  diet,  costume,  bever- 
ages, or  house  architecture.  A  large  proportion  of  pro- 
ducers work  under  direction,  but  as  consumer  one  is  a  free 
man.  As  children  we  consume  long  before  we  produce. 
Finally,  our  recollection  of  a  form  of  enjoyment  or  con- 
sumption ("the  old  swimmin'  hole,"  "pies  like  mother 
used  to  make")  is  more  vivid  and  lasting  than  our  recol- 
lection of  a  manner  of  doing  work. 
Fixity  of  the  Habits  of  consumption  constitute  the  standard  of 
L^vhi^'^  °  /i'yw^,  which  may  become  so  imperious  as  to  overrule 
the  sex  and  family  instincts  and  exercise  a  salutary  check 
upon  the  growth  of  population.  The  stubbornness  with 
which  men  cling  to  their  customary  standard  of  living 
is  emphasized  by  Mrs.  Mead:^  "At  the  other  extreme 
of  society  is  found  the  class  that  has  not  yet  developed 
wants  of  a  qualitative  character.  Included  here  are  all 
who  are  still  in  a  caste  system ;  for  example,  the  Chinese, 
the  coolies,  the  European  peasantry.  From  generation 
to  generation  they  eat  the  same  food,  dwell  in  the  same 
houses,  wear  the  same  clothing,  work  at  the  same  trades, 
and  indulge  in  the  same  pleasures.  The  Hindoo  who 
starves  to  death  during  the  famine  rather  than  eat  wheat, 

*  Journal  of  Political  Economy,  IX,  228. 


THE  FIELDS   OF   CUSTOM   IMITATION         263 

and  the  Italian  who  imports  macaroni  and  olives,  and 
who  puts  up  with  expensive  aduherated  articles  rather 
than  change  his  diet,  are  characteristic  of  the  class.  To 
them  must  be  added  the  degenerate  element  of  our  city 
slums.  On  the  borders  is  the  backwoodsman,  who,  in 
his  isolation,  has  become  inured  to  the  hardships  of  his 
life  and  indifferent  to  the  advances  made  in  comfortable 
living.  He  is  contented  with  a  ham-and-egg  diet,  and  he 
has  implicit  belief  in  the  superiority  of  everything  home- 
made, from  soap  to  butter,  and  from  shock  mattress 
to  clothes.  In  general,  education  for  the  lower  class  must 
mean  the  excitation  of  new  wants." 

The    inelasticity    of    habits    of    consumption    explain  Laborers 
certain  economic  paradoxes.    Says  Weil,  of  Mexico :  *  "  The  JJJqJ^^j"°™|^. 
low  wages,  however,  appear  to  be  largely  the  result  of  the  ings  to  cost 
ignorance    and    improvidence  of   the   natives,  and   it  is  °j^ther"fhan 
somewhat  questionable  whether  higher  daily  wages  would  cost  of  living 
permanently  benefit  the  peon,  unless  at  the  same  time    °  ^^^'^ss 
his  standard   of  life   rose.     The   experience  of  railroad 
companies  and  other  employers  of  labor  in  Mexico  has 
been  that  higher  daily  wages  increase  idleness,  and  that, 
if  the  wages  for  a  day's  work  be  doubled,  the  number 
of  working  days  will  be  halved.     It  is  also  a  fact  con- 
firmed by  the  experience  and  observation  of  many  em- 
ployers that  the  amount  of  labor  performed  bears  no 
direct  relation  to  the  wages,  and  that  even  where  work 
is  done  by  the  task  instead  of  by  the  day  the  promise 
of  additional  remuneration  will  seldom  result  in  an  in- 
creased output."     Says  our  consul  ^  of  the  working  class 

1  Bulletin  of  the  U.  S.  Dept.  of  Labor,  No.  38,  p.  48. 

''H.  R.  Docs.,  1884-1885,  vol.  26,  "Labor  in  America,  Asia,  etc.," 

239- 


264  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

of  Ecuador:  "The  working  class  in  the  main  lives  for 
to-day,  letting  to-morrow  take  care  of  itself.  This  class 
works  sufficiently  to  earn  a  subsistence,  but  exhausts 
no  energies  in  efforts  at  accumulation.  The  cause  is  an 
example  handed  from  age  to  age  and  generation  to  genera- 
tion. The  tendency  is  to  fall  into  a  beaten  track,  to  do 
things  now  as  they  were  done  last  year,  or  ten  or  fifty  years 
ago.  They  are  not  hostile  to  innovations  and  new  things ; 
but  they  do  not  seek  them,  and  only  accept  them  when 
it  is  easier  to  accept  them  than  to  cast  them  aside.  .  .  . 
There  are  no  signs  that  either  the  rate  of  wages  or  the 
general  condition  of  the  working  class  will  be  changed 
for  many  years  to  come.  When  there  is  a  great  change, 
it  must  result  from  external  influences.  The  working 
class  appears  to  be  much  more  contented  with  its  condition 
here  than  the  same  class  in  those  countries  where  a  greater 
degree  of  intelligence  and  a  higher  order  of  civilization 
abounds." 
Ease  of  ex-  Among  a  custom-bound  people  the  problem  of  ex- 
ploiting a  ploitive  government  is  simple.  So  long  as  they  do  not 
bound  threaten  the  laboring  man's  customary  comforts,  the  ruling 

^^°^  ^  classes  can  absorb  all  the  rest  of  the  social  income  without 

exciting  a  revolt.  With  railroads,  mines,  plantations,  and 
factories,  they  may  multiply  the  national  output  by  three, 
yet  cede  the  masses  no  share  in  the  new  prosperity.  Such, 
generally  speaking,  is  the  technique  of  exploitation  in 
the  South  American  countries.  On  the  other  hand, 
where  the  working  classes  have  become  discontented 
and  outreaching  and  ambitious,  it  is  necessary  for  the 
ruling  class  to  concede  them  a  share  in  the  increase  of 
social  income.  Discontent  and  restlessness  and  striving 
to  better  one's  condition,  penetrating  society  to  the  very 


im- 


THE   FIELDS   OF   CUSTOM   IMITATION  265 

bottom,  is  the  only  adequate  guarantee  for  the  permanence 
of  democratic  government. 

It  is  their  relative  immobility  of  consumption  that  makes  Asiatic 
the  unrestricted  immigration  of  Asiatics  so  menacing  to  ^"'grants 

rr,^  ^  •  ^^'^  borrow 

the  future  of  our  country.     The  coolies,  acquirmg  our  our  skill 
industrial  methods  —  and  consequently  our  earning  power  sooner  than 

.  ,  our  stand- 

—  ere  they  have  accepted  our  standards  of  living,  would  ards  of 
multiply  at  a  higher  rate  than  Americans,  and  would  ^^^^"s 
therefore  tend  to  supplant  the  native  stock.  Elsewhere 
the  writer  has  said :  Suppose  Asiatics  flock  to  this  country 
and,  enjoying  equal  opportunities  under  our  laws,  learn 
our  methods  and  compete  actively  with  Americans. 
They  may  be  able  to  produce  and  therefore  earn  in  the 
ordinary  occupations,  say  three-fourths  as  much  as  Ameri- 
cans; but  if  their  standard  of  life  is  only  half  as  high, 
the  Asiatic  will  marry  before  the  American  feels  able  to 
marry.  The  Asiatic  will  rear  two  children  while  his 
competitor  feels  able  to  rear  but  one.  The  Asiatic  will 
increase  his  children  to  six  under  conditions  that  will 
not  encourage  the  American  to  raise  more  than  four. 
Both,  perhaps,  are  forward-looking  and  influenced  by 
the  worldly  prospects  of  their  children;  but  where  the 
Oriental  is  satisfied  with  the  outlook,  the  American,  who 
expects  to  school  his  children  longer  and  place  them 
better,  shakes  his  head. 

Now,  to  such  a  competition  there  are  three  possible  By  freer 
results.     First,    the    American,    becoming    discouraged,  ^""^'p^^^; 

'  '  ^  o      >    tion  Asiatics 

may   relinquish   his   exacting   standard   of   decency   and  win  replace 
begin  to  multiply  as  freely  as  the  Asiatic.     This,  however,  ^°^encans 
is  likely  to  occur  only  among  the  more  reckless  and  worth- 
less  elements   of   our   population.     Second,    the    Asiatic 
may  catch  up  our  wants  as  well  as  our  arts,  and  acquire 


266  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

the  higher  standard  and  lower  rate  of  increase  of  the 
American.  This  is  just  what  contact  and  education  are 
doing  for  the  French  Canadians  in  New  England,  for  the 
immigrants  in  the  West,  and  for  the  negro  in  some  parts 
of  the  South;  but  the  members  of  a  great  cuUure  race 
like  the  Chinese  show  no  disposition,  even  when  scattered 
sparsely  among  us,  to  assimilate  to  us  or  to  adopt  our 
standards.  Not  until  their  self-complacency  has  been 
undermined  at  home  and  an  extensive  intellectual  ferment 
has  taken  place  in  China  itself  will  the  Chinese  become 
assimilable  elements.  Thirdly,  the  standards  may  remain 
distinct,  the  rates  of  increase  unequal,  and  the  silent 
replacement  of  Americans  by  Asiatics  go  on  unopposed 
until  the  latter  monopolize  all  industrial  occupations, 
and  the  Americans  shrink  to  a  superior  caste  able  perhaps 
by  virtue  of  its  genius,  its  organization,  and  its  vantage 
of  position  to  retain  for  a  while  its  hold  on  government, 
education,  finance,  and  the  direction  of  industry,  but 
hopelessly  beaten  and  displaced  as  a  race.  In  other 
words,  the  American  farm  hand,  mechanic,  and  operative 
might  wither  away  before  the  heavy  influx  of  a  prolific 
race  from  the  Orient,  just  as  in  classic  times  the  Latin 
husbandman  vanished  before  the  endless  stream  of  slaves 
poured  into  Italy  by  her  triumphant  generals. 
5.  Custom  is  powerful  in  matters  of  feeling. 
Feelings  out-  This  is  because  there  are  no  objective  or  logical  tests 
to  emancipate  us  from  a  transmitted  emotional  attitude. 
In  comparison  with  beliefs  and  practices,  loves  and 
hatreds,  admiration  and  contempt  are  inveterate.  Recall 
the  hereditary  vendettas  of  Corsica,  Calabria,  Scotland, 
and  Kentucky.  Think  of  the  tenacity  of  popular  attach- 
ment to  effete  dynasties  like  the  Stuarts  and  the  Bourbons. 


live  their 
causes 


THE  FIELDS   OF   CUSTOM   IMITATION         267 

Says  Bryce:^  "The  Franks  in  Gaul  during  the  seventh 
and  eighth  centuries  were  as  fierce  and  turbulent  a  race 
as  the  world  has  ever  seen.  Their  history  is  a  long  record 
of  incessant  and  ferocious  strife.  From  the  beginning 
of  the  seventh  century  the  Merwing  kings,  descendants 
of  Clovis,  became,  with  scarcely  an  exception,  feeble 
and  helpless.  Their  power  passed  to  their  viziers,  the 
Mayors  of  the  Palace,  who  from  about  a.d.  638  onwards 
were  kings  de  facto.  But  the  Franks  continued  to  revere 
the  blood  of  Clovis,  and  when,  in  656,  a  rash  Mayor 
of  the  Palace  had  deposed  a  Merwing  and  placed  his 
own  son  on  the  throne,  they  rose  at  once  against  the  insult 
offered  to  the  ancient  line;  and  its  scions  were  revered 
as  titular  heads  of  the  nation  for  a  century  longer,  till 
Pippin  the  Short,  having  induced  the  Pope  to  pronounce 
the  deposition  of  the  last  Merwing  and  to  sanction  the 
transfer  of  the  crown  to  himself,  sent  that  prince  into 
a  monastery." 

That  feudal  loyalty  dies  slowly  may  be  seen  in  the   Beliefs  can 
affection   of    Scottish   Highlanders   for   their    clan    chief  ^grtTd  but 
long  after  English  law  had  transformed  him  into  a  grasp-  not  feeUngs 
ing,  relentless  landlord,  and  in  the  hereditary  tie  that 
in  Old  Japan  bound  a  samurai  line  to  a  daimyo  line. 
National   friendships  and   enmities  tend   to  become  in- 
veterate, as  witness  the  traditional  feeling  between  the 
French  and   the   Poles  on  the  one  hand,  between  the 
French    and    English    on    the    other.     The    Irishman's 
hatred  of  the  "Saxon"  passes  undiminished  from  parent 
to   child,   and  even  bears  transplantation   to   American 
soil.     The  writer  once  saw  an  Englishman  and  a  Scotch- 
man, in  the  presence  of  ladies,  come  to  blows  over  a  chance 

1" Studies  in  History  and  Jurisprudence,"  II,  22. 


268 


SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 


Past  events 
shape  the 
present 
chiefly 
through  the 
feelings  they 
inspired 


Relations  be- 
tween men 
and  women 
governed  by 
ancient 
standardized 
sentiments 


allusion  to  a  battle  between  their  peoples  six  centuries 
ago! 

Inter-race  feelings  survive  time  and  change.  Recall 
the  undying  antipathy  between  Spaniard  and  Moor, 
Kurd  and  Armenian,  Turk  and  Macedonian.  The 
relation  between  Boer  and  Kaffir  is  an  open  sore,  the 
color  line  in  our  South  is  far  from  fading  away,  and 
people  still  bait  the  Jews  "because  they  crucified  the 
Saviour."  Though  their  Mogul  masters  have  long  been 
dust,  the  BengaU  still  cringe  like  spaniels  under  the  tone 
of  command.  Inter-class  feelings  are  hard  to  uproot. 
Witness  the  persistence  of  Brahminical  disdain,  of  seign- 
iorial pride,  of  plantation  manners,  of  Helot  crouch,  and 
peasant  deference.  Inter-confessional  feelings  live  long. 
Scratch  a  Scotchman  and  you  come  upon  an  antipathy 
to  the  Church  of  England  that  goes  back  to  the  persecu- 
tion of  the  Covenanters,  Claverhouse,  and  the  Massacre 
of  Glencoe.  The  "No  Popery"  fanaticism  of  the  English 
masses  is  a  heritage  from  the  fires  of  Smithfield,  the 
Spanish  Armada,  and  the  Bloody  Assizes.  The  riots 
between  Orangemen  and  Catholics  that  once  convulsed 
American  cities  show  how  an  antipathy  may  keep  its 
vitality  for  two  centuries. 

Inter-sex  feelings,  such  as  male  overbearingness  or 
female  mistrust,  long  outlast  the  state  of  things  to  which 
they  correspond.  Chivalry  and  dependence  are  still 
the  standard  sentiments  between  young  men  and  women, 
even  though  they  have  nothing  more  to  go  on  than  rescu- 
ing the  young  lady  from  a  mouse  or  giving  her  super- 
fluous aid  in  alighting  from  a  car.  Hence,  endless  posing 
and  attitudinizing.  Man  insists  on  protecting  and  woman 
on  clinging  as  in  the  rude  and  parlous  times  before  the 


charac- 
teristic 


THE   FIELDS   OF   CUSTOM   IMITATION         269 

ubiquitous  policeman.  Between  youth  and  maid  a 
"Platonic  friendship"  is  impossible,  not  because  it  goes 
against  their  nature,  but  because  it  clashes  with  the 
dominant  tradition  that  any  liking  between  them  must  be 
sentimental. 

Strong  feeling  about  the  disposal  of  the  dead  makes  Why  mode 
us,  against  our  better  judgment,  resist  cremation.  The  "[Jhe^dJaT 
mode  of  disposal  (burial,  burning,  embalming,  hanging  is  a  race 
in  trees,  exposure  to  birds,  throwing  into  the  sacred 
river)  is  for  each  people  so  characteristic  and  stable 
that  by  this  mark  alone  ethnologists  and  archaeologists 
can  trail  a  race  across  wide  stretches  of  time  and  space. 
Feelings  about  the  gods  is  long-lived.^  Instance  the  re- 
appearance of  Christianity  in  France  after  the  submer- 
gence of  religion  during  the  Revolution.  Dostoiewsky 
tells  a  story  of  the  Russian  who  on  becoming  enlightened 
broke  the  icons  that  adorned  the  altar,  put  out  the  candles, 
and  then  replaced  the  icons  with  the  works  of  atheistic 
philosophers,  after  which  the  candles  were  piously  re- 
lighted !  Likewise,  the  Religion  of  Humanity  founded 
by  Comte  retains  the  familiar  emotions,  but  gives  them 
a  new  object.  The  feeling  for  an  ideal  lasts  because  it 
is  awakened  so  early.  The  reason  why  great  men  of 
action  so  often  give  their  mothers  the  credit  for  their 
eminence  is  that  a  sublime  character  is  grounded  not  on 
moral  principles,  but  on  moral  admirations  and  detesta- 
tions, i.e.,  on  personal  ideals,  and  these  are  aroused  in 

*  "Although  the  Sakalava  people  (in  Madagascar)  have  adhered  to 
Islam  for  three  centuries,  'they  have  adopted  Islam  without  bringing  any 
notable  change  to  their  former  customs  and  manners.'  Allah  and  the 
Prophet  take  a  prominent  place  in  their  religious  ceremonies,  yet  still 
inferior  to  Zanahatry  and  Angatra,  their  national  divinities."  — St.  Louis 
Congress  of  Arts  and  Sciences,  II,  511-512. 


270 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


Feeling  can- 
not be  over- 
come by 
arguments 


The  agen- 
cies of  con- 
trol need  the 
prestige  of 
age 


Archaism  of 
law 


US  by  our  mothers  in  the  tender  years  before  the  father's 
influence  becomes  strong.  The  love  that  native-born 
colonials  cherish  for  the  mother  country  is  usually  trans- 
mitted to  them  through  their  mothers.  It  has  been 
suggested  that  the  absence  of  the  filial  feeling  for  Holland 
among  the  South  African  Boers  is  due  to  the  fact  that 
the  first  settlers  were  wived  with  forlorn  orphan  girls, 
sent  out  from  the  poorhouses  of  Holland,  who  naturally 
had  no  tender  memories  or  warm  feeling  for  the  mother 
land  to  pass  on  to  their  children. 

Discussion  is  more  destructive  to  hold-over  beliefs 
than  to  hold-over  feelings.  Argument  carries  the  out- 
works of  pretext,  but  finds  that  they  mask  the  impregnable 
inner  citadel  of  "I  like  this!"  "I  hate  that!"  Only 
by  vivid  images  and  impressions  that  excite  counter  feel- 
ings is  it  possible  to  extirpate  a  superannuated  sectarian 
feud,  class  antipathy,  or  race  prejudice.  No  force  of 
logic  can  kill  these  inherited  venoms;  but  they  may  be 
neutralized  by  wider  contacts  and  fresh  experiences. 

6.  Institutions  of  control  —  law,  government,  religion, 
ceremony,  and  mores  —  are  fossiliferous} 

All  these  endeavor  to  bind  the  will  of  man  to  social 
requirements.  In  this  difficult  and  ticklish  undertaking 
nothing  helps  like  prestige;  and,  of  all  the  prestiges,  that 
of  great  antiquity  is  for  most  men  the  strongest  and  most 
reliable. 

The  archaic  spirit  of  law  is  shown  by  the  appeal  to 
precedent,  the  fiction  that  the  law  is  immemorial  custom, 
the  venerable  "trial  by  jury,"  the  uncouthness  of  legal 
phraseology,  the  ancient  forms  of  procedure,  the  retention 
of  wigs,  gowns,  seals,  and  criers.     Says  John  Stuart  Mill 

'See  Ross,  "Social  Control,"  190-194. 


THE  FIELDS   OF   CUSTOM   IMITATION         271 

of  English  law  in  the  time  of  Bentham :  *  "  The  law  came 
to  be  like  the  costume  of  a  full-grown  man  who  had  never 
put  off  the  clothes  made  for  him  when  he  first  went  to 
school.  Band  after  band  had  burst,  and  as  the  rent 
widened,  then,  without  removing  anything  except  what 
might  drop  off  of  itself,  the  hole  was  darned,  or  patches 
of  fresh  law  were  brought  from  the  nearest  shop,  and 
stuck  on.  Hence,  all  ages  of  English  history  have  given 
one  another  rendezvous  in  English  law:  their  several 
products  may  be  seen  all  together,  not  interfused,  but 
heaped  upon  one  another,  as  many  different  ages  of  the 
earth  may  be  read  in  some  perpendicular  section  of  its 
surface;  the  deposits  of  each  successive  period  not  sub- 
stituted, but  superimposed  on  those  of  the  preceding. 
And  in  the  world  of  law,  no  less  than  in  the  physical 
world,  every  commotion  and  conflict  of  the  elements 
has  left  its  mark  behind  in  some  break  or  irregularity 
of  the  strata.  Every  struggle  which  ever  rent  the  bosom 
of  society  is  apparent  in  the  disjointed  condition  of  the 
part  of  the  field  of  law  which  covers  the  spot;  nay,  the 
very  traps  and  pitfalls  which  one  contending  party  set 
for  another  are  still  standing ;  and  the  teeth,  not  of  hyenas 
only,  but  of  foxes  and  all  cunning  animals,  are  imprinted 
on  the  curious  remains  found  in  these  antediluvian  caves." 

The  archaic  spirit  of  government  is  seen  in  the  cling-  Archaism  of 
ing  to  traditional  policy  (Will  of  Peter  the  Great,  Balance  government 
of  Power,  the  Temporal  Power,  Monroe  Doctrine) ;  in 
the  place  conceded  to  classes  long  since  decayed  (the 
landed  nobility  in  the  British  House  of  Lords) ;  in  the 
appeal  to  distant  precedent  and  musty  charters  for  the 
settlement  of  the  rights  and  duties  of  to-day;   in  the  hold 

*  "Dissertations  and  Discussions,"  I,  Essay  on  Bentham. 


272  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

of  profligate  dynasties;  in  that  magical  power  of  legiti- 
macy which  restored  the  French  and  Spanish  Bourbons, 
and,  when  Germany,  Italy,  and  Hungary  attained  unity 
or  independence,  made  a  crown  the  rallying  point;  in 
the  blending  of  contradictions  seen  in  constitutional 
monarchy,  in  the  legalizing  of  revolutions,  in  the  legiti- 
mating of  usurpers,  in  the  interpretation  of  written 
constitutions.  Government,  moreover,  is  full  of  sur- 
vivals —  court  dress,  court  etiquette,  regalia,  titles, 
emblems  of  authority,  royal  polygamy,  etc. 
Archaism  of  The  archaic  spirit  of  religion  is  attested  by  the  use  of 
organized       ^-^^^  knivcs  in  Sacrifice  or  circumcision  long  after  metal 

religion  *^ 

knives  have  come  in,  and  of  the  fire  drill  for  kindling  the 
sacrificial  flame  after  flint  and  tinder  have  become  known ; 
in  the  higher  sanctity  ascribed  to  candles  over  other 
illuminants;  in  the  retention  of  Koptic  in  the  liturgy  of 
the  Abyssinian  Christians,  of  the  Old  Bactrian  of  the 
Zend-Avesta  in  Parsee  worship,  of  the  Arabic  of  the 
Koran  among  non-Arabic  Mohammedans,  of  ancient 
Hebrew  in  the  Jewish  services,  of  Latin  in  Catholic 
worship,  of  Old  English  in  Bible  and  Prayer  Book;  in 
the  preference  for  the  faulty  King  James  version  of  the 
Bible ;  in  the  emphasis  laid  on  Apostolic  Succession ; 
in  the  difficulty  of  bringing  the  Westminster  Confession 
abreast  of  current  Presbyterian  thought;  in  the  settle- 
ment of  disputed  points  by  appeal  to  the  Bible  or  to  the 
Fathers/ 

Ceremony,  too,  is  full  of  outworn  symbols,  gestures 

*  Nevertheless,  when  religious  dogma  and  organization  have  been 
broken  up  and  swept  away  by  a  powerful  burst  of  prophetism,  religion 
may  show  itself  very  radical  and  transformative  so  long  as  this  current 
runs. 


THE  FIELDS  OF  CUSTOM  IMITATION  273 

and  picture  actions  of  forgotten  meaning,  obsolete  words, 
etc.  To  the  folk-historian  a  marriage  service,  a  royal 
coronation,  the  drinking  of  healths,  or  the  rite  of  extreme 
unction  is  a  museum  of  antiquity. 

The  reason  why  institutions  of  control  are  so  full  of  Only  out- 
survivals  is  that  such  institutions  work  the  better  the  ^"^""P  ^"^ 

noxious  tra- 

older  they  grow,  which  is  not  true  of  a  construction  in  ditions 
syntax,  a  funeral  service,  a  pattern  of  tool  or  garment.  d^sTredUed 
Devices  in  the  field  of  control,  however  crude  at  first, 
improve  with  age  Hke  wine.  A  duty  enjoined  in  the  old 
sacred  books  or  the  precept  of  an  ancient  sage  binds  us 
more  than  would  the  same  if  it  came  to  us  unhallowed 
by  time.  Crown  and  royal  blood  win  for  the  Emperor 
Dom  Pedro  an  obedience  that  his  republican  successors 
in  Brazil  can  command  only  by  military  force.  To  ask 
religion,  government,  law,  or  morality  to  make  extensive 
and  thoroughgoing  changes  in  a  single  generation  is  to 
ask  an  army  to  form  a  new  line  in  the  face  of  the  enemy. 
There  are  cases  in  which  the  discrediting  of  tradition  is 
like  picking  out  the  mortar  that  holds  together  the  fabric 
of  society.  The  immediate  fruit  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, as  of  the  Protestant  Reformation,  was  anarchy  and 
the  dissolution  of  morals.  The  withering  interrogation 
of  all  maxims,  doctrines,  and  ideals  by  men  without  a 
sense  of  the  past  may  lead  to  a  denial  of  everything  save 
one's  own  will. 

SUMMARY 

By  making  the  twentieth  man  master  of  the  situation,  competition 
produces  a  high  death  rate  among  outgrown  customs. 

The  spirit  of  tradition  is  strong  in  everything  pertaining  to  the 
home. 

He  travels  farthest  who  travels  alone.  Everything  in  which  men 
must  move  together  is  liable  to  fall  behind  the  times. 

T 


274  SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

Men  will  change  their  manner  of  working  sooner  than  their  man- 
ner of  living: 

When  custom-bound  men  exploit  richer  opportunities,  they  en- 
large their  family  rather  than  raise  their  standard  of  living. 

For  this  reason  the  competition  between  races  in  the  same  area 
assumes  two  forms.  The  higher  race  may  outdo  the  lower,  or  the 
lower  may  underlive  the  higher. 

Feelings  between  races,  nations,  classes,  sects,  and  sexes  rarely 
correspond  to  the  contemporary  situation,  but  reflect  some  bygone 
situation. 

Institutions  of  control  are  rich  in  survivals,  because  the  prestige 
of  age  aids  in  control. 

EXERCISES 

1.  Why  is  the  official  creed  of  a  denomination  less  elevated  in 
respect  to  infant  damnation  or  eternal  punishment  than  the  personal 
creed  of  the  average  member  ? 

2.  Why  do  woman's  legal  rights  lag  behind  her  generally  acknowl- 
edged moral  rights? 

3.  Why  is  it  a  mistake  to  send  the  Indian  girl  back  to  her  tribe 
when  she  finishes  school  ? 

4.  Is  our  noisy  manner  of  celebrating  Independence  Day  on  a 
level  with  the  present  taste  of  the  American  people  ? 

5.  Is  the  Jewish  love  of  large  families  suited  to  a  remote  or  to  a 
present  situation  ? 

6.  If  you  were  trjring  to  induce  Jews  and  Christians,  Orangemen 
and  Catholics,  Germans  and  Slavs,  Poles  and  Lithuarians,  to  sink 
their  enmities  and  unite  in  a  labor  movement,  how  would  you  pro- 
ceed? 

7.  Why  is  it  that  our  immigrants  save  so  much  more  and  "  get 
ahead  "  so  much  sooner  than  the  American  born? 

8.  Why  is  it  that  as  soon  as  the  Chinese  in  Hawaii  "  adopt  an 
American  manner  of  life,  they  cease  to  be  a  depressing  factor  in  the 
labor  market "  ? 


CHAPTER  XV  ' 

RELATION   OF   CUSTOM    IMITATION   TO   CONVENTIONALITY 

IMITATION 

I.  There  is  a  contrast  between  societies  in  respect  to  the 
relative  power  of  custom  and  conventionality. 

In    some    societies    "old"    equals    "beloved."     Nihil  Profound 
mihi  antiquius  est  said  Cicero,  meaning  "Nothing  is  dearer  t^g/^  ^  ^,.^] 
to  me."     In  China  " my  elder  brother"  and  "How  old  you  dhionai  and 
look !"  are  forms  of  greeting.     In  such  societies  status,  not  tional  society 
competition,  determines  men's  relations.     Social  considera-  . 

tion  depends  on  one's  birth.      Religion  is  usually  ancestor  1 

worship,  in  any  case,  tribal,  exclusive,  and  non-proselyting. 
The  hereditary  principle  prevails  in  government  and  priest- 
hood, perhaps  even  in  occupations.  The  family  is  patriar- 
chal and  the  patria  potestas  is  well-nigh  unlimited.  Local  -1 
customary  law  prevails.  The  language  differentiates  into 
local  and  class  dialects.  Duties  are  more  emphasized 
than  rights.  Morality  imposes  upon  the  individual  sacri- 
fices in  view  of  certain  permanent  wants  of  his  walled-in 
group  —  his  family,  tribe,  city,  canton,  or  country. 
Respect  for  old  age,  faithfulness  to  blood  revenge,  and 
feudal  loyalty  are  resplendent  virtues. 

In  other  societies  (as  in  the  United  States  to-day)  the 
watchwords  are  "progress,"  "enlightenment,"  "the  age." 
The  cant  commendations  are  "brand  new,"  "up-to-date," 
"latest  and  best,"  "new  blood."  No  phrase  is  so  damn- 
ing as  "behind  the  times."     Society  is  individualistic  and 

2  75 


276 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


A  society 
oscillates  be- 
tween na- 
tionalism 
and  cosmo- 
politanism 


competitive.  Rights  are  more  emphasized  than  duties. 
The  spirit  is  cosmopoHtan.  Familism,  clannishness,  and 
Chauvinistic  patriotism  are  considered  "narrow."  Pre- 
tensions founded  on  family,  or  the  worthiness  of  some 
ancestor,  are  laughed  at.  Social  grading  is  on  the  basis 
of  some  present  fact  —  money,  efficiency,  achievement, 
education,  or  character.  Language  grows  by  incorporat- 
ing terms  which  make  their  debut  as  slang.  Customary 
law  is  supplemented  by  legislation.  The  patriarchate 
dissolves.  Religion  proselytes.  Philanthropy  is  honored. 
Morality  summons  the  individual  to  sacrifice  himself  for 
certain  wide  interests  —  the  public,  humanity,  posterity, 
race  elevation.  Its  sanction  is  not  divine  command,  but 
public  opinion,  honor,  and  self-respect. 

2.  In  the  life  history  of  a  society  there  are  alternating 
epochs  of  outlook  and  backlook,  of  ''our  time'^  and  ''our 
country.''^ 

These  give  us  alternations  of  "breaking"  and  sub- 
soiling,  of  expansion  and  deepening,  of  innovation  and 
pause,  of  the  rule  of  the  Liberals  and  the  rule  of  the  Tories. 
France,  in  the  last  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  was  all 
outlook,  infatuated  with  classic,  English,  and  American 
political  models ;  now,  with  her  cult  of  Joan  of  Arc  and  of 
Napoleon,  her  glance  is  backward.  Germany  was  cos- 
mopolitan in  tone  under  Frederick  the  Great  and  his 
successors,  but  after  1806  (Fichte,  Stein,  Hardenberg), 
and  again  after  1870,  backlook  supervened.  In  American 
society  there  has  been  a  great  deal  of  outlook,  but,  since 
the  series  of  Centennial  celebrations  (1875-1889),  there 
has  been  a  certain  backlook  showing  itself  in  the  revival 
of  historical  studies,  in  the  formation  of  hereditary  patriotic 
societies,  and  in  the  dread  of  "drifting   away  from  the 


RELATION  OF  CUSTOM  TO  CONVENTIONALITY     277 

ancient  landmarks."  In  Japan  an  epoch  of  wholesale 
borrowing  has  been  followed  by  backlook,  while  China, 
after  long  rusting  in  her  bearings,  is  just  beginning  to 
mould  herself  after  foreign  models.  After  an  epoch  of 
cosmopolitanism,  and  reform  on  the  basis  of  foreign  ex- 
ample, a  nation  seems  to  experience  a  certain  decay  in  the 
forces  of  social  control.  Law,  religion,  and  morality 
suffer,  and  signs  of  disintegration  in  the  form  of  rampant 
individualism  or  bitter  class  antagonism  appear ;  thereupon 
there  is  an  instinctive  turning  to  and  brooding  over  the 
past  in  the  futile  hope  of  recovering  thereby  solidarity  and 
moral  health. 

3.   In  times,  in  circles,  and  in  matters,  where  custom 
imitation  rules,  new  things  try  to  appear  old. 

In  early  society,  adoption  of  an  outsider  into  the  family  When  age 
was  disguised  as  sonship,  and  naturalization  into  the  t^g^heTew 
tribe  was  the  feigning  of  kinship.  Just  as  Menelik,  "  King  pretends  to 
of  kings"  of  Abyssinia,  claims  descent  from  Solomon  and 
the  Queen  of  Sheba,  so  the  successful  Germanic  warrior- 
king  felt  obliged  to  acquire  an  aristocratic  pedigree. 
Says  Jenks:^  "Leaders  like  Clovis,  and  Theodoric,  and 
Alaric,  and  Egbert,  .  .  .  began  to  buttress  up  their 
authority  by  appeals  to  other  sanctions  (than  military 
prestige).  One  of  the  most  skilful  of  these  appeals  was 
the  appropriation  by  the  kings  of  the  character  and 
attributes  of  the  tribal  chief  whom  they  had  conquered 
or  dispossessed.  It  is  possible  that,  in  a  few  cases,  they 
were  really  and  truly,  members  of  tribal  aristocracies, 
though  probably  not  of  the  aristocracies  of  the  tribes  whom 
they  had  conquered.  In  most  cases,  they  were  simply 
adventurers  who  had  obtained  their   positions  by  sheer 

'  "History  of  Politics,"  85-86. 


i 


be  old 


278  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

hard  fighting.  But  they  soon,  by  a  series  of  fictions  which 
could  only  have  been  accepted  in  a  simple  age,  persuaded 
their  subjects  that  they  really  were  members  of  the  ancient 
families  whom  they  had  overcome.  The  pedigree  of  an 
early  European  king  generally  led  up  to  some  well-known 
Hero  who  had  long  been  regarded  with  reverence  as  a 
mythical  ancestor  of  the  tribe  or  tribes  over  which  he  was 
ruhng." 

In  the  same  vein  Napoleon,  finding  mere  efficiency  no 
solid  basis  for  his  rule,  summoned  the  Pope  from  Rome 
to  anoint  him  Emperor,  received  the  acclamations  of  his 
army  in  the  iron  chair  of  Dagobert,  held  court  at  Aachen, 
first  capital  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire,  and  in  Milan 
crowned  himself  king  of  Italy  with  the  Iron  Crown  of 
Charlemagne.  Jesus  represents  himself  as  the  "fulfilling 
of  the  Law,"  the  Messiah.  St.  Paul  in  his  epistle  to  the 
Romans  endeavors  to  establish  a  sympathetic  bond  be- 
tween Jewish  law  and  Christianity.  New  legal  principles 
masquerade  as  old  ones.  Maine  *  shows  that  both  English 
Legal  Case-Law  and  the  Roman  Responsa  Prudentum  rest  on 

fictions,  and  adds:  "It  is  not  difficult  to  understand  why 
fictions  in  all  their  forms  are  particularly  congenial  to  the 
infancy  of  society.  They  satisfy  the  desire  for  improve- 
ment, which  is  not  quite  wanting,  at  the  same  time  that 
they  do  not  offend  the  superstitious  disrelish  for  change 
which  is  always  present.  At  a  particular  stage  of  social 
progress  they  are  invaluable  expedients  for  overcoming 
the  rigidity  of  law  and,  indeed,  without  one  of  them,  the 
fiction  of  Adoption,  which  permits  the  family  tie  to  be 
artificially  created,  it  is  difficult  to  understand  how  society 
would  ever  have  escaped  from  its  swaddling  clothes,  and 

'"Ancient  Law,"  25-26. 


fictions 


RELATION  OF  CUSTOM  TO  CONVENTIONALITY    279 

taken  its  first  steps  towards  civilization."  Of  the  Bar- 
barian Codes  Jenks  observes:*  "Written  custom  cannot 
be  altered  imperceptibly ;  it  is  always  possible  to  point  to 
the  exact  text,  and  show  what  it  says.  Nevertheless  customs 
must  alter  in  a  progressive  society ;  and  so  it  was  necessary 
to  have  successive  editions  of  the  written  Codes,  as  in  fact 
happen.  Thus  people  came  gradually  to  accept  the 
idea  that  custom  could  be  altered;  and  occasionally  they 
even  allowed  the  king,  by  way  of  bargain  or  agreement, 
to  introduce  certain  deliberate  alterations.  No  doubt  a 
good  many  more  alterations  were  secretly  slipped  in  by 
the  royal  scribes  who  drew  up  the  Codes." 

Gallic  logic  recognizes  the  new  for  what  it  is,  but  in  English 
England  every  great  political  reform  has  posed  as  a  hark  ^sanTn-  ^ 
back  to  the  "ancient  liberties"  of  the  much-overworked  heritance 
Magna  Charta.  Says  Burke  :^  "We  wished  at  the  period 
of  the  Revolution,  and  do  now  wish,  to  derive  all  we  pos- 
sess as  an  inheritance  from  our  forefathers.  Upon  that  body 
and  stock  of  inheritance  we  have  taken  care  not  to  inoculate 
any  scion  alien  to  the  nature  of  the  original  plant.  All 
the  reformations  we  have  hitherto  made,  have  proceeded 
upon  the  principle  of  reference  to  antiquity.  .  .  .  You 
will  see  that  Sir  Edward  Coke,  that  great  oracle  of  our  law, 
and  indeed  all  the  great  men  who  follow  him  to  Blackstone, 
are  industrious  to  prove  the  pedigree  of  our  liberties.  They 
endeavor  to  prove  that  the  ancient  charter,  the  Magna 
Charta  of  King  John,  was  connected  with  another  positive 
charter  from  Henry  I,  and  that  both  the  one  and  the  other 
were  nothing  more  than  a  re -affirmance  of  the  still  more 
ancient  standing  law  of  the  kingdom.  ...     In  the  famous 

*  "History  of  Politics,"  126. 

'  "  Reflections  on  the  Revolution  in  France,"  36-40,  passim. 


28o  SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

law  called  the  Petition  of  Right,  the  parliament  says  to 
the  king,  'Your  subjects  have  inherited  this  freedom,' 
claiming  their  franchises,  not  on  abstract  principles  as  the 
'rights  of  men,'  but  as  the  rights  of  Englishmen,  and  as 
a  patrimony  derived  from  their  forefathers.  .  .  .  You 
will  observe  that  from  Magna  Charta  to  the  Declaration 
of  Right,  it  has  been  the  uniform  policy  of  our  constitution 
to  claim  and  assert  our  liberties  as  an  entailed  inheritance 
derived  to  us  from  our  forefathers  and  to  be  transmitted 
to  our  posterity;  as  an  estate  specially  belonging  to  the 
people  of  this  kingdom  without  any  reference  whatever  to 
any  more  general  or  prior  right.  By  this  means  our  con- 
stitution preserves  an  unity  in  so  great  a  diversity  of  its 
parts.  We  have  an  inheritable  crown;  an  inheritable 
peerage ;  and  a  House  of  Commons  and  a  people  inheriting 
privileges,  franchises,  and  liberties,  from  a  long  line  of 
ancestors.  ...  By  this  means  our  liberty  becomes  a 
noble  freedom,  it  carries  an  imposing  and  majestic 
aspect.  It  has  a  pedigree  and  illustrating  ancestors.  It 
has  its  bearings  and  its  ensigns  armorial.  It  has  its 
gallery  of  portraits;  its  monumental  inscriptions;  its 
records,  evidences,  and  titles.  We  procure  reverence  to 
our  civil  institutions  on  the  principle  upon  which  nature 
teaches  us  to  revere  individual  men,  —  on  account  of  their 
age,  and  on  account  of  those  from  whom  they  are  de- 
scended." 

Thanks  to  our  rigid  Constitution,  the  powers  that  enable 
the  Federal  government  to  cope  with  difficulties  beyond 
the  ken  or  foresight  of  the  fathers  cannot  be  granted  by 
the  present  will  of  the  people.  We  expect  our  judges  to 
draw  them  out  of  the  Constitution  as  a  juggler  draws 
rabbits  out  of  a  hat. 


RELATION  OF  CUSTOM  TO  CONVENTIONALITY    281 

Columbus  found  it  useless  to  urge  his  idea  of  the  ro- 
tundity of  the  earth  unless  he  could  prove  it  to  be  old. 
Filmer  in  his  Patriarcha  sought  to  ground  the  authority 
of  Charles  II  on  the  authority  granted  by  Jehovah  to  the 
patriarchs  of  the  Old  Testament !  Rousseau  appealed 
to  an  imaginary  "state  of  nature"  in  justification  of  his 
political  ideals.  The  French  revolutionaries  found  war- 
rant for  their  acts  in  the  history  of  Athens  and  Sparta. 
Henry  George  made  much  of  primitive  land-holding 
policy  in  urging  his  single-tax  reform.  The  Mussulman 
sect  of  Wahabees  poses  as  a  return  to  primitive  Islam, 
just  as  sect  after  sect  of  Protestants  has  proclaimed  itself 
a  restoration  of  Apostolic  Christianity.  Theosophy  aims 
to  be  impressive  by  surrounding  itself  with  the  glamour  of 
hoary  Hindu  antiquity.  A  Methodist  convert  to  Dar- 
winism seeks  to  commend  the  doctrine  to  his  brethren 
by  proving  John  Wesley  to  be  an  evolutionist.  It  was, 
again,  the  dread  of  newness  that  made  Charles  II  claim 
the  reign  of  Cromwell  as  part  of  his  own  and  Louis  XVIII, 
in  1814,  date  his  earliest  state  papers  "  in  the  nineteenth 
year  of  our  reign." 

4.  In  times,  in  circles,  and  in  matters,  where  conven- 
tionality imitation  rules,  the  old  tries  to  appear  new. 

In  our  own  society  the  new  has  unusual  prestige,  and  When 
hence  the  old  hides  her  gray  locks  with  a  wig  and  decks  "e°  ^^g^res- 
out  her  withered  countenance  with  the  finery  of  youth,  tige,  the  old 
Aristocracy  pretends  to  find  its  scientific  vindication  in  the  teTew^  *° 
Darwinian  doctrine  of  natural   inequality   and   survival 
of  the  fittest.     The  truth  is,  of  course,  that  privilege  sus- 
p)ends  for  its  darlings  that  very  struggle  for  existence  which 
conduces  to  the  survival  of  the  fittest.     Defenders  of  the 
ecclesiastical  "prohibited  degrees"  —  within  which  mar- 


282 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


The  confir- 
mation of 
dogma  by 
"science  " 


riage  will  not  be  solemnized  —  justify  their  anachronism 
by  citing  facts  on  the  evils  of  in-and-in  breeding ;  whereas 
union  with  a  deceased  wife's  sister  is  not  in-and-in  breeding 
at  all.  Sabbatarianism  eagerly  identifies  its  "holy  day" 
with  the  "day  of  rest"  that  social  science  finds  to  be 
necessary  for  the  well-being  of  toilers.  Divines  pretend 
that  the  mystical  transmission  of  Adam's  guilt  to  all  his 
descendants  is  confirmed  by  the  modern  investigations 
into  heredity.  Exploitive  imperialism  arrogates  to  itself 
the  support  of  sociology,  and  talks  finely  about  a  "civilizing 
mission"  and  "the  duty  of  the  higher  races  to  the  lower." 
A  brutal  selfishness  as  old  as  the  Ice  Age  struts  about  in 
phrases  borrowed  from  the  Darwinists,  and  bids  us  see 
in  the  prosperity  of  the  wicked  the  Success  of  the  Adapted  ! 
Even  the  dogma  of  the  Immaculate  Conception  finds 
countenance  in  the  "latest  science."  Fiske  ^  gives  a 
specimen  of  Rev.  Joseph  Cook's  manner  of  vindicating 
orthodoxy.  "According  to  Mr.  Cook,  Professor  Huxley 
says :  '  Throughout  almost  the  whole  series  of  living  beings, 
we  find  agamo genesis,  or  not-sexual  generation.^  After  a 
pause,  Mr.  Cook  proceeded  in  a  lower  voice :  'When  the 
topic  of  the  origin  of  the  life  of  our  Lord  on  the  earth  is 
approached  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  microscope,  some 
men,  who  know  not  what  the  holy  of  holies  in  physical 
and  religious  science  is,  say  that  we  have  no  example  of 
the  origin  of  life  without  two  parents.'  He  went  on  to  cite 
the  familiar  instances  of  parthenogenesis  in  bees  and  silk 
moths,  and  then  proceeded  as  follows :  '  Take  up  your  Mi- 
vart,  your  Lyell,  your  Owen,  and  you  will  read  [where  ?]  this 
same  important  fact  which  Huxley  here  asserts,  when  he 
says  that  the  law  that  perfect  individuals  may  be  virginally 

*  "A  Century  of  Science,"  345-346. 


RELATION  OF  CUSTOM  TO  CONVENTIONALITY    283 

born  extends  to  the  higher  forms  of  life.  I  am  in  the 
presence  of  Almighty  God ;  and  yet,  when  a  great  soul 
like  that  tender  spirit  of  our  sainted  Lincoln,  in  his  early 
days,  with  little  knowledge  but  with  great  thoughtfulness, 
was  troubled  by  this  difficulty,  and  almost  thrown  into 
infidelity  by  not  knowing  that  the  law  that  there  must  be 
two  parents  is  not  universal,  I  am  willing  to  allude,  even 
in  such  a  presence  as  this,  to  the  latest  science  concerning 
miraculous  conception.'     (Sensation.)" 

If,  however,  the  old  cannot  assume  the  guise  of  youth,  The  old 
it  strives  to  discredit  the  new  by  making  it  out  to  be  old.  ^^^^^^  *^ 

.  .  newness  of 

Fromundus  m  his  Ant-Aristarchus  pretends  that  the  the  new 
discovery  of  Copernicus  is  only  the  exploded  theory  of  a 
Pagan  philosopher.  The  doctrine  of  evolution  is  declared 
to  be  merely  "a  rehash  of  Lucretius."  The  conclusions 
of  the  Higher  Critics  of  the  Scriptures  are  dismissed  as 
an  "old  heresy"  that  has  been  disposed  of  again  and  again. 
The  agnosticism  of  the  modern  scientific  man  is  assimilated 
to  the  Athenian  worship  of  ''the  Unknown  God."  The 
philosophical  pessimism  of  Schopenhauer  is  waved  aside 
as  only  a  current  version  of  the  pessimism  of  the  author 
of  the  book  of  Ecclesiastes.  Collectivists  are  refuted  by 
reciting  Aristotle's  critique  of  Plato's  communal  republic. 
Extension  of  state  activity  is  represented  as  a  revival 
of  the  regime  by  which  the  Incas  exploited  the  subject 
Peruvians.  Contemporary  divorce,  which  is  chiefly  at 
the  instance  of  the  woman,  is  identified  with  ancient 
divorce,  which  was  at  the  instance  of  the  man  and  wrought 
the  degradation  of  woman. 


284  SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

SUMMARY 

It  makes  a  profound  diflference  in  the  characteristics  of  a  society 
whether  its  members  imitate  in  the  longitudinal  plane  or  the  trans- 
verse plane. 

There  is  a  swing  of  the  pendulum  between  the  cosmopolitan  spirit 
and  the  spirit  of  tradition. 

When  the  spirit  of  custom  rules,  every  innovation  seeks  to  com- 
mend itself  by  feigning  age  and  pedigree. 

When  the  liberal  spirit  reigns,  every  hoary  dogma  or  institution 
strives  to  furnish  up-to-date  reasons  and  support. 

If  it  cannot  do  so,  it  tries  to  discredit  its  antagonist  by  making  it 
out  to  be  old  and  passe. 

EXERCISES 

1.  What  doctrines  are  most  helpful  to  a  proselyting  religion? 

2.  Show  that  in  large  societies  socialization  is  much  more  com- 
plete if  conventionality  rules  than  if  custom  rules. 

3.  Contrast  the  effects  of  foreign  war  and  of  civil  war  upon  the 
spirit  of  tradition. 

4.  What  are  the  disadvantages  of  the  way  of  deriving  popular 
liberties  recommended  by  Burke? 

5.  Why  is  easy  amendment  better  than  spurious  interpretation  as 
a  means  of  making  a  written  constitution  elastic  ? 

6.  Should  the  divorce  problem  be  settled  by  BibUcal  texts?  If 
not,  what  should  settle  it  ? 

7.  Why  does  lawless  love  now  call  itself  an  "  afl&nity  "  ? 


CHAPTER   XVI 

RATIONAL    IMITATION 

The  purging  of  the  mind  from  every  kind  of  preposses-  Origination 
sion  or  prestige  gives  room  for  either  origination,  or  rational  ^  ^^^^ 
imitation.  Now,  origination,  i.e.,  invention  or  discovery, 
is  so  difficult  that  it  will  always  be  the  prerogative  of 
the  few.  In  a  well-knit  society,  even  those  who  have 
the  originality  to  invent  find  usually  that  some  one  has 
anticipated  them,  and  learn  from  another  what  they  might 
in  time  have  found  out  for  themselves.  The  frequency 
of  nearly  simultaneous  origination  by  two  or  more  persons 
proves  how  brief  is  the  interval,  after  the  discovery  or 
invention  is  ripe,  before  it  is  actually  made.  This  is  why 
nearly  every  element  in  our  body  of  culture  has  been 
propagated  from  one  point.  The  youthful  D'Alembert 
discovered  for  himself  many  theorems  already  known,  but 
not  for  long  was  such  genius  allowed  to  run  to  waste. 
The  ingenious  shepherd  lad,  James  Ferguson,  who  in- 
vented a  clock,  a  watch,  and  a  celestial  globe,  might,  if 
he  had  stayed  with  his  sheep,  have  devised  many  other 
contrivances  already  known  to  mankind.  But  even  he 
was  found  and  educated,  so  that,  instead  of  continuing  to 
invent  the  invented,  he  enriched  his  fellow-men  with  the 
orrery,  the  tide  dial,  and  the  eclipsareon. 

In  rational  imitation  our  attitude  toward  a  practice  de-  Attitude  of 
pends  in  no  wise  on  the  prestige  or  discredit  of  those  who  ^^^  rational 

*^  1  1   •  1  o  imitator 

have  adopted  it,  or  of  the  time  and  place  of  its  origin,  but 

285 


286  SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

only  on  its  apparent  ^/we^j.  Likewise  our  attitude  toward 
a  proposition  depends  solely  on  its  appearance  of  truth, 
i.e.,  its  probability.  The  rational  imitator  is  not  fascinated 
by  the  great  man  or  the  crowd.  He  is  impressed  neither 
by  antiquity  nor  by  novelty.  He  is  as  open  to  what  comes 
from  below  him  as  to  what  comes  from  above  him  in  the 
social  hierarchy.  He  is  conservative  in  that  he  keeps  every 
precious  inheritance  from  the  past  until  he  has  found  some- 
thing better;  he  is  radical  in  that  he  goes  to  the  root, 
instead  of  judging  by  mere  surfaces.  On  the  one  hand, 
he  regards  the  existing  device  or  institution  as  a  provisional 
thing  that  will  some  day  be  surpassed ;  on  the  other,  he 
knows  that  not  one  out  of  ten  innovations  that  sue  for  his 
favor  is  an  improvement  on  the  thing  as  it  is.  When  the 
transforming  forces  are  most  active  and  society  is  in  a 
dynamic  condition,  he  will  figure  as  a  "heretic,"  "up- 
setter,"  or  "disturber";  in  the  lull,  he  will  be  called  "moss- 
back"  or  "obstructionist."  For  him,  however,  social 
life  is  always  a  process.  Seeing  the  bases  of  society  in 
incessant  flux,  he  realizes  that  the  superstructure  must 
change.  He  accepts  the  relativity  of  our  dearest  mental 
furniture,  our  moral  standards,  social  theories,  political 
philosophies,  and  party  programmes.  He  distrusts  yester- 
day's thought,  not  as  unsound,  but  as  unfit  for  to-day's 
occasions.  Most  institutions  he  knows  are  in  the  grasp 
of  a  current  of  change  which  relentlessly  antiquates  not 
only  the  wisdom  of  the  fathers,  but  even  the  conclusions 
of  his  own  youth.  Hence,  he  combats  the  somnolence 
that  creeps  upon  us  in  the  thirties,  insisting,  though  the  years 
pass,  that  it  is  still  forenoon  and  not  too  late  to  think. 

The  accumulation  of  changes  on   the   rational  princi- 
ple is  progress;  of  utilities,  practical  progress;  of  truths, 


RATIONAL  IMITATION  287 

intellectual  progress.     Moral  progress  and  aesthetic  prog-  Moral  and 
ress  do  not   come    about    essentially  by  origination  and  ^^^^^^'^ 

•'        ■'  °  progress 

rational  diffusion.  Progress  in  these  departments  is  hinge  on 
usually  the  consequence  of  material  or  intellectual  advance-  ^d^i"tei- 
ment.  The  sparing  of  captives  began  as  soon  as  men  lectuai  prog- 
reached  the  agricultural  stage  and  were  able  to  set  their  "^^^ 
captives  to  productive  labor.  In  the  Northern  states, 
the  abandonment  of  African  slavery  seems  to  have  come 
about  in  consequence  of  the  general  adoption  of  expensive 
farm  implements  which  slaves  could  not  be  brought  to  use 
skilfully  or  carefully.  The  improvement  in  the  status 
of  the  wife  flows  from  the  necessity  of  making  matrimony 
more  attractive  to  woman,  now  that  so  many  industrial 
and  professional  careers  are  open  to  her.  That  militant 
ethical  opinion  which  slashes  now  here,  now  there,  laying 
low  at  each  stroke  some  wrong  or  abuse,  is  the  outcome 
of  improvements  in  the  apparatus  of  publicity.  As 
instances  of  a  moral  advance  conditioned  by  intellectual 
progress  may  be  cited  —  the  humanization  of  punish- 
ments in  consequence  of  the  diffusion  of  scientific  ideas 
of  crime  and  punishment;  the  abandonment  of  judicial 
torture  owing  to  the  psychological  demonstration  of  its 
futility;  the  restriction  of  child  labor  following  upon  our 
fuller  knowledge  of  the  bodily  and  mental  growth  of 
children ;  the  introduction  of  safety  appliances  in  industry 
after  investigations  unveiling  the  vast  and  bloody  tragedy 
of  industrial  accidents. 

There  are  certain  elements  of  culture  that  tend  to  diffuse  Rational 
by  rational  imitation,  viz.,  the  practical  arts  and  the  sciences.  *^''^^^°'\ 
To  be  sure,  in  each  of  these  authority  is  recognized  and  reliance  on 
followed.     This  could  hardly  be  otherwise  in  view  of  the  ^"'  °"^ 
immense  advantage  of  the  specialist.     But  the  foundation 


288 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


Rationality 
in  the  spread 
of  the  prac- 
tical arts 

Competition 


Measure- 
ment 


of  such  authority  is  not  prestige,  but  past  success.  It  is 
perfectly  rational  to  treat  as  an  authority  in  his  line  the 
general  who  has  won  every  battle,  the  lawyer  who  has 
gained  every  suit,  the  physician  who  has  saved  every  case ; 
on  the  other  hand,  to  withdraw  some  of  our  confidence 
from  the  civil  engineer  when  his  bridge  falls,  from  the  as- 
tronomer when  his  prediction  fails. 

Two  causes  can  be  assigned  why  rational  imitation  pre- 
vails more  in  the  practical  arts  than  in  manners,  dress, 
amusements,  or  the  fine  arts. 

1.  The  spur  of  competition  hastens  the  triumph  of  the 
fittest  tool,  machine,  or  process,  but  not  of  the  fittest  gar- 
ment, ceremony,  or  sport.  Armed  with  the  lever  of  com- 
petition, one  progressive  man  can  lift  out  of  the  rut  the 
ninety  and  nine  unprogressive  men.  One  dentist  prac- 
tising painless  dentistry  forces  all  other  dentists.  One 
manufacturer  marketing  safety  bicycles  coerces  all  makers 
of  big-wheel  bicycles.  One  nation  arming  itself  with 
rifled  cannon,  compels  other  nations  to  throw  their  smooth- 
bores on  the  scrap-heap. 

2.  Exact  measurement  enables  us  to  discover  the  better 
of  two  practical  types  —  electric  or  cable  cars,  natural 
or  creosoted  railroad  ties,  overshot  or  turbine  wheels, 
Jersey  or  Durham  cows,  alfalfa  or  timothy  grass.  But 
there  is  no  means  of  exactly  comparing  the  recreation 
afforded  by  bridge  whist  with  that  from  diavolo,  the  fun 
of  base -ball  with  that  of  golf,  the  spell  cast  by  the  realist 
with  that  cast  by  the  romancer,  the  thrill  from  Shelley's 
poetry  with  the  thrill  from  Kipling's  poetry,  the  pleasure 
from  a  Bouguereau  painting  with  the  pleasure  from  a 
Monet. 

It  is  owing  to  this  difference  that  there  are  "schools" 


RATIONAL   IMITATION  289 

and  "movements"  in  the  fine  arts,  never  in  the  practical  The  fine  arts 
arts.     Thus  we  hear  of  the   Delia  Cruscans,  the  Lake   the  sport  of 

'  prestige 

School,  the  Pre-Raphaelite  Brotherhood,  the  Symbolists, 
the  Decadents,  the  Secessionists,  the  Esthetes.  In  music 
there  persist  side  by  side  Italian  opera  and  German 
opera,  in  literature  the  romanticism  of  Scott  and  Hugo 
and  the  realism  of  Balzac  and  Tolstoi.  A  great  artist, 
hke  Michael  Angelo  or  Wagner,  becomes,  in  spite  of  him- 
self, the  founder  of  a  school,  the  members  of  which,  having 
no  touchstone  of  discrimination,  copy  eagerly  his  faults 
as  well  as  his  excellences,  and,  moreover,  being  without 
any  means  of  measurement,  exaggerate  his  technique 
to  the  pitch  of  the  grotesque.  If,  by  a  skilful  disposition 
of  lights  and  shadows  on  the  nude  figure,  the  painter 
suggests  the  knotted  muscles  that  go  with  violent  action, 
his  imitators  will  make  their  lights  higher  and  their  shadows 
deeper,  in  the  hope  of  producing  even  greater  effects.  If 
the  composer  disfigures  his  work  by  introducing  the  hit 
motif,  then  his  followers  will  sow  their  compositions  with 
absurd  hit  motifs.  All  this,  because  there  is  no  means 
of  assaying  masterpieces  and  parting  the  gold  from  the 
dross.  Criticism,  to  be  sure,  aspires  to  appraise  by  ob- 
jective and  universal  standards,  so  that  our  acceptance 
or  rejection  of  art  methods  or  works  may  be  rational ;  but 
the  standards  of  one  generation  of  critics  are  the  mockery 
of  the  next,  so  that  criticism  is,  after  all,  little  more  than 
one  man's  liking  or  dislike. 

There  are  two    causes   why  science   diffuses   in  virtue  Rationality 
of  rational  imitation,  but   not   theological,  metaphysical,  '"t^^e  spread 

*^         '  '^    -^  '    of  science 

political,  or  ethical  thought. 

I.    The  applications  of  a  science  in  the  practical  arts  Practical 
test  the  truth  of  its  doctrines.     Thus  boring  and  mining  applications 

u 


290 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


Verification 


"Thought" 
the  sport  of 
prestige 


test  geology,  practical  sanitation  tests  pathology  and 
bacteriology,  synthetic  chemistry  tests  analytical  chemis- 
try, while  spectrum  analysis,  telephony,  wireless  teleg- 
raphy, and  X-ray  applications  test  the  principles  of 
physics. 

2.  In  science  every  important  statement  must  be  veri- 
fiable. This  it  is  that  distinguishes  the  fabric  of  modern 
science  from  all  previous  fabrics,  e.g.,  the  Summa  of 
Thomas  Aquinas.  Science  is  credible,  not  because  the 
intellectual  power  of  its  builders  surpasses  that  of  the 
Alexandrian  philosophers  or  the  mediaeval  Schoolmen,  but 
because  of  its  method.  Each  of  its  great  strides  dates 
from  some  happy  experiment  or  observation.  Torricelli's 
experiment  of  balancing  thirty-two  feet  of  water  against 
thirty  inches  of  mercury  ends  "Nature  abhors  a  vacuum." 
When  Newton  measured  the  relative  velocities  of  sound 
and  light,  he  put  a  quietus  on  the  argument  that  we  see 
the  lightning  before  we  hear  the  thunder,  "because  sight 
is  nobler  than  hearing."  Galileo's  detection  of  Venus's 
phases  with  his  telescope  gave  the  Ptolemaic  system  its 
coup  de  grdce.  Foucault's  pendulum  made  visible  the 
earth's  rotation.  The  laboratory  study  of  carbonic  acid 
gas  destroyed  Agricola's  theory  that  the  suffocating  gases 
in  mines  are  "the  breath  of  malignant  imps."  Franklin's 
kite  ends  the  vision  of  God  "casting  thunderbolts." 
The  finding  of  half-digested  fragments  of  weaker  animals 
in  the  fossilized  bodies  of  the  camivora  upset  Wesley's 
amiable  theory  that  the  carnage  now  going  on  among 
the  animals  is  the  result  of  Adam's  sin ! 

In  consequence  of  this  distinction  there  are  "schools" 
and  "movements"  in  philosophy,  theology,  political  and 
ethical  "thought,"  but  not  in  true  science.     Individual 


RATIONAL   IMITATION  291 

scientists,  like  Haeckel  or  Weismann,  may  speculate,  but 
science,  while  appropriating  their  verifiable  discoveries, 
rejects  their  speculations.  In  philosophy,  we  have  the 
school  of  Plato  and  the  school  of  Aristotle,  the  Realists 
and  the  Nominalists,  the  dualists  and  the  monists.  In 
ethical  thought,  there  are  the  followers  of  Tolstoi  and  the 
followers  of  Nietzsche.  In  political  thought,  there  are 
the  disciples  of  Rousseau  and  the  partisans  of  De  Maistre, 
the  school  of  Webster  and  the  school  of  Calhoun.  In 
social  philosophy,  we  meet  with  Fourierites  and  Owenites, 
St.  Simonians  and  Marxists,  autoritarians  and  anarchists. 
In  all  these,  the  prestige  and  authority  of  the  great  man 
come  into  play.  But  the  genuine  scientist  wins  no  dis- 
ciples, founds  no  school,  leaves  no  personal  impress. 
Nothing  is  taken  on  his  ipse  dixit}  The  obituary  notice 
of  him  in  the  journals  of  his  science  is  cold  and  imper- 
sonal. His  work,  and  the  singleness  of  aim,  close  appli- 
cation, and  intellectual  power  that  made  possible  his 
work  —  that  is  all.  Nothing  of  his  personal  appearance 
and  daily  life,  none  of  the  sayings  and  anecdotes  that  are 
lovingly  preserved  by  the  disciples  of  the  philosopher  or 
the  founder  of  a  religion. 

The  practice  of  rational  imitation  grows  and  ought  to 

^  Kepler's  main  reasoning  as  to  the  existence  of  a  law  for  cometary 
movements  was  right;  but  his  secondary  reasoning,  that  comets  move 
nearly  in  straight  lines,  was  wrong.  His  successors  verified  the  former 
and  accepted  it,  tested  the  latter  and  rejected  it.  Says  White  :  "  Very 
different  was  this  from  the  theological  method.  As  a  rule  when  there 
arises  a  thinker  as  great  in  theology  as  Kepler  in  science,  the  whole 
mass  of  his  conclusions  ripens  into  a  dogma.  His  disciples  labor  not  to 
test  it,  but  to  establish  it;  and,  while,  in  the  Catholic  Church  it  becomes 
a  dogma  to  be  believed  or  disbelieved,  under  the  penalty  of  damnation, 
it  becomes  in  the  Protestant  Church  the  basis  for  one  more  sect."  — 
"  History  of  the  Warfare  of  Science  with  Theology,"  203. 


292 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


The  exten- 
sive growth 
of  rational 
imitation 


grow.  But  its  growth  may  be  either  extensive  or  inten- 
sive. In  the  one  case,  the  practice  extends  to  new  layers 
of  the  population;  in  the  other,  it  invades  new  depart- 
ments of  thought  and  activity. 

One  great  aim  of  all  culture-diffusing  agencies  should 
be  the  increasing  of  the  number  of  those  who  imitate 
rationally.  Universal  instruction,  free  libraries,  high-class 
periodicals,  college  settlements,  the  exercise  of  the  suf- 
frage, women's  clubs,  experience  in  voluntary  associa- 
tions, —  all  can  play  a  part  in  emancipating  people  from 
blind  imitation.  It  is  not  enough  to  break  the  yoke  of 
custom.  The  radical  spirit,  coupled  with  political  and 
social  equality  but  without  enlightenment,  simply  puts 
mob  mind  in  the  place  of  custom  as  lord  of  life.  To 
justify  itself  democracy  must  be  much  more  than  a  politi- 
cal movement,  or  even  a  social  movement.  Its  goal  is 
not  attained  by  giving  every  man  a  vote,  or  even  an  oppor- 
tunity. It  must  include  a  great  culture  movement  aiming 
to  lift  all  to  a  plane  of  discrimination  and  rational  choice. 
Then,  whatever  element  gains  control  of  society,  the 
Dark  Ages  can  never  recur.* 


'  Professor  Dresslar  elicited  from  875  California  normal  school 
students,  four-fifths  of  whom  were  young  women,  3225  confessions 
of  belief  in  superstitions.  Of  the  hundreds  of  distinct  superstitions 
these  students  were  able  on  demand  to  recall  and  put  on  paper  nearly 
half  inspired  some  belief.  What  a  vast  underground  sheet  of  pseudo- 
wisdom  seeping  down  through  the  centuries  by  oral  transmission  !  If 
the  semi-educated  young  people  to  whom  we  are  presently  to  commit 
the  teaching  of  our  children  are  such  slaves  to  the  unreason  of  benighted 
ancestors,  can  we  wonder  at  the  popular  faith  in  lotteries,  luck,  mascots, 
fortune  tellers,  clairvoyants,  occultists,  mediums,  "divine"  healers, 
quacks,  patent  medicines,  absent  treatment,  water  witching,  and  the  like  ? 
Enthusiasts  who  anticipate  intellectual  and  social  regeneration  within 
a  generation  or  two  in  consequence  of  our  universal  education  would  do 


RATIONAL   IMITATION  293 

The  intensive  growth  of  rational  imitation  means  the  Theinten- 
entrance   of   science   with   its   verifiable   statements   into  ^^"^s^^"^^ 
realms  ruled  hitherto  by  authority,  tradition,  or  conven- 
tion.    We  see  it  in  the  substituting  of  scientific  hygiene 
for  transmitted  rules  of  ablution,  propriety,  and  absti- 
nence;  of  meteorology  for  empirical  weather  lore  and  the 
guesses  of   weather  "wizards";    of    psychiatry  for  doc- 
trines of  witchcraft  and  demoniac  possession;    of  com- 
parative anthropology  for  the  legend  of  a  "chosen  people." 
An  ethics  basing  its  norms  on  human  nature  and  the  Ethics 
nature  of  the  social  organization  is  superseding  the  alleged 
commandments  of  Deity,  the  precepts  of  ancient  sages, 
the  customs  of  the  fathers,  and  the  edicts  of  Mrs.  Grundy. 
Sociology,  regarding  the  family  as  a  purely  social  institu-   Sociology 
tion,    to   be   constituted   not   according   to   tradition,   or 
ecclesiastical  decree,  or  the  intuitions  of  great  writers, 
but  with  reference  to  individual  happiness,  social  wel- 
fare, and  race  interest,  promises  to  end  profitless  contro- 
versies as  to  whether  marriage  is  a  sacrament  or  a  contract ; 
bigoted  denunciation  and  passionate  defence  of  divorce; 
the  "woman's  sphere"  dogmas;    and  the  appeal  to  the 
prescriptive  division  of  labor  between  husband  and  wife. 
The  light  from  child  study  will  guide  in  matters  that  Pedagogy 
have  been  the  football  between  venerable  pedagogic  false- 
hood and  sentimental  faddism.     A  scientific  economics.  Economics 
acquainted  with  human  nature,  the  conditions  of  indus- 
triousness,  thrift  and  enterprise,  and  the  laws  of  group 

well  to  consider  how  little  of  our  teaching  as  yet  has  the  power  to  build 
up  a  rational  mental  habit,  and  how  thin  is  the  veneer  of  culture  over  that 
great  mass  of  irrational  predisposition  which  in  the  hour  of  fear  and 
excitement  resumes  control  of  the  popular  mind  and  leads  on  to  folly 
and  ruin.  —  University  of  California  Publications,  "Superstition  and 
Education,"  1907. 


294 


SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 


Juris- 
prudence 


survival,  and  judging  an  economic  institution  not  by 
subjective  standards  but  by  the  way  it  tends  to  work  out 
in  the  long  run,  will  displace  "natural  right"  dogmas  and 
end  the  barren  age-long  controversies  over  the  ethical 
basis  of  property,  the  morality  of  land  ownership,  and 
the  rightfulness  of  interest  or  inheritance.  A  jurispru- 
dence embodying  a  scientific  apprehension  of  society's 
needs  and  of  the  relation  of  law  to  society,  will  thrust 
aside  legal  doctrines  based  on  a  primitive  tradition,  a 
remote  code,  the  "wisdom  of  our  ancestors,"  or  the 
apocryphal  "reasons"  offered  by  the  commentators. 
Comparative  Comparative  politics,  coupled  with  comparative  legisla- 
tion, will  render  it  unnecessary  to  take  as  beacon  the 
philosophy  of  some  political  sage,  a  Rousseau  or  a  Burke, 
a  Hamilton  or  a  Jefferson. 

In  the  practical  arts,  likewise,  the  blindly  imitated  is 
yielding  to  the  reasonable  or  demonstrated.  Each  of  the 
arts  is,  in  fact,  coming  to  be  applied  science.  One  has 
but  to  mark  the  intimate  dependence  of  the  practice  of 
medicine  on  pathology,  of  nursing  on  hygiene,  of  plant 
and  animal  breeding  on  biology,  of  brewing  on  bacteri- 
ology, of  cooking  on  chemistry,  of  fruit  raising  on  horti- 
cultural science,  and  of  farming  on  agricultural  science. 


politics 


The  arts  as 
applications 
of  science 


SUMMARY 


After  a  mind  has  been  purged  from  all  regard  for  prestige,  imita- 
tion proceeds  on  a  rational  basis. 

The  attitude  of  the  rational  imitator  is  that  known  as  the  "  scien- 
tific." 

It  is  not  irrational  to  follow  authorities,  provided  our  confidence 
in  them  has  a  rational  ground. 

The  growth  and  diffusion  of  the  practical  arts  is  largely  a  rational 


RATIONAL   IMITATION  295 

process,  because  they  are  exposed  to  competition,  and  their  results 
admit  of  measurement. 

The  fine  arts,  on  the  other  hand,  are  subject  to  mob  mind,  fad, 
fashion,  tradition,  and  personal  prestige. 

Because  of  its  practical  applications  and  its  principle  of  verifica- 
tion, science  rises  and  spreads  on  rational  lines. 

Tradition  and  personal  authority  are  influential,  however,  in  the 
various  departments  of  "  thought." 

Rational  imitation  may  grow  by  reaching  more  things  or  by  mas- 
tering more  people. 

In  origination  and  the  growth  of  rational  imitation  lies  the  hope 
of  progress. 

EXERCISES 

1.  What  changes  —  material  and  intellectual  —  are  behind  the 
temperance  movement?  the  peace  movement?  the  arts -and -crafts 
movement  ? 

2.  Contrast  the  unbridled  spirit  of  innovation  and  social  experi- 
ment with  the  scientific  attitude  toward  institutions  and  proposals. 

3.  Is  the  obtrusiveness  of  personality  and  temperament  in  litera- 
ture, painting,  and  music  a  sign  of  advancement  or  a  mark  of  back- 
wardness ? 

4.  What  is  the  rational  way  of  ascertaining  woman's  "sphere"? 

5.  Why  is  it  vain  to  debate  whether  marriage  is  a  sacrament  or 
a  contract  ? 

6.  Is  the  wrongfulness  of  interest  settled  by  showing  the  interest- 
taker  to  be  one  who  "  reaps  where  he  has  not  sown  "  ?     Reasons. 

7.  How  can  you  settle  whether  a  thing  is  right  —  by  consulting 
conscience  or  by  consulting  physiology,  psychology,  and  sociology  ? 


CHAPTER  XVII 


INTERFERENCE   AND  CONFLICT 


Two  kinds 
of  conflict 


Prestige 

against 

prestige 


Like  systems  of  waves  in  air  or  water  spreading  from 
different  centres  of  disturbance,  incompatible  forms  of 
thought  or  feehng  or  action,  as  they  are  progressively 
propagated  outward  through  space  or  downward  through 
time,  must  eventually  encounter  and  interfere  with  one 
another.  There  comes  a  moment  when  cuneiform  writ- 
ing, spreading  out  from  the  Euphrates  Valley,  meets  and 
is  checked  by  the  triumphant  diffusion  of  the  Phoenician 
characters,  parent  of  all  our  own  writing;  when  the 
spreading  worship  of  Christ  comes  into  collision  with  the 
expanding  worship  of  Mithras;  when  Hindu  religious 
myths,  beliefs,  and  practices,  peacefully  descending  through 
the  centuries  from  father  to  son,  and  from  pundit  to  pupil, 
find  their  course  blocked  by  a  religion  that,  having  com- 
pleted the  conquest  of  the  Occident,  is  being  carried  by 
missionary  zeal  into  the  very  citadels  of  Oriental  civiliza- 
tion; when  coffee,  introduced  into  Europe  by  the  Turks 
and  spreading  upward  from  the  Southeast,  meets  the  ex- 
panding empire  of  tea,  whose  capitals  are  England  and 
Russia.  Such  interferences  lead  to  conflict,  of  which  we 
can  distinguish  two  chief  kinds  —  silent  con/lid  and  vocal 
conflict,  i.e.,  discussion. 

Silent  conflict  is  sometimes  the  struggle  of  two  prestiges. 
The  outcome  of  the  competition  between  the  French 
language  and  the  English  in  the  Egyptian  schools  has 

296 


INTERFERENCE   AND   CONFLICT  297 

turned  mainly  on  the  relative  prestige  of  France  and 
England  in  the  eyes  of  the  Egyptians.  The  brows  both 
of  Christianity  and  of  Theosophy  are  white  with  the  hoar 
of  antiquity,  and  in  many  minds  their  conflict  will  be 
decided  by  their  comparative  prestige.  So,  in  the  inter- 
ference of  the  styles  of  costume  launched  by  rival  foot- 
light  favorites,  of  the  examples  of  vying  social  leaders  in 
respect  to  note-paper  or  parlor  recitals,  of  the  interpreta- 
tions of  Hamlet  by  great  actors  (Garrick,  Kean,  Booth, 
Irving,  Mounet-SuUy) ,  of  the  rowing  methods  of  two 
champion  oarsmen,  of  the  unlike  vocalization  of  two  popu- 
lar singers,  the  result  may  hinge  entirely  on  relative  per- 
sonal prestige.  Whenever  social  superiority  and  subordi- 
nation are  marked,  merit  is  little  considered,  and  it  is 
comparative  prestige  that  is  likely  to  decide  the  day. 
Hence,  in  a  hierarchized  society,  or  in  the  dealings  of 
advanced  nations  with  rude  peoples,  everything  depends 
on  the  example  set  by  those  looked  up  to ;  and  all  manner 
of  ascendencies  flow  from  that  which  confers  prestige,  viz., 
military  and  political  ascendency.  The  magnificence  of 
the  Czar's  coronation,  the  splendor  of  the  Durbar  at 
Delhi,  aids  the  ascendency  of  empire  over  tribal  traditions 
and  feudatory  native  dynasties,  and  is,  therefore,  a  great 
procurer  of  obedience. 

Again,  conflict  is  sometimes  a  duel  between  a  prestige  Prestige 
and  a  merit.  This  often  is  the  situation  presented  when  ^^^"^'* 
the  new  collides  with  the  old.  The  Dyaks  of  Borneo 
used  to  cut  straight  into  a  log,  the  U-chop.  When  they 
came  into  contact  with  the  easier  V-chop  of  the  Euro- 
peans, they  wanted  to  use  it,  but  their  medicine  men  told 
them  it  would  anger  the  gods;  so,  for  a  while,  they  em- 
ployed the  V-chop  only  when  alone  in  the  forest,  safe 


298  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

from  observation.  So,  in  the  struggle  between  suttee  and 
no-suttee,  the  Chinese  bandaged  foot  and  the  natural  foot, 
the  hour-glass  waist  and  the  natural  waist,  the  prestige  is 
all  on  one  side.  When  we  hesitate  whether  to  write 
"waistcoat"  or  "vest,"  "labour"  or  "labor,"  the  issue 
lies  between  precedent  and  convenience.  In  our  own 
society,  however,  novelty  is  not  v/ithout  a  certain  prestige, 
so  that  the  innovation  wins  the  faddists  for  nothing;  but 
by  far  the  greater  number  of  people  can  be  impressed 
only  by  its  merits. 
The  conflict  The  relation  of  victor  and  vanquished  in  such  conflicts 
ancToicT  '^^^  brings  out  clearly  the  fallacy  of  the  recurring  notion  that 
the  regression  or  decay  of  social  forms  is  the  counterpart 
of  their  progression  or  growth;  the  illusion  that  a  style  of 
painting,  an  industrial  process,  a  language,  or  a  religion, 
has  a  natural  old  age  as  it  has  a  natural  youth.  The  fact 
is  that  a  social  form  spreads  like  a  system  of  undulations, 
radiating  from  one  centre,  which  do  not  return  on  them- 
selves unless  an  obstacle  is  encountered;  or  like  a  living 
species  which  expands  until  the  limits  of  its  habitat  are 
reached,  and  then  becomes  stable.  A  species  of  plant  or 
animal  does  not  die,  it  is  exterminated  by  some  better 
adapted  competitor;  a  machine  or  a  dogma  does  not  die, 
it  is  displaced  by  some  new  and  superior  rival.  The 
Divine  Right  of  Kings,  the  Verbal  Inspiration  of  the 
Scriptures,  cujus  regio  ejus  religio,  the  Ptolemaic  system, 
and  the  laisse  faire  policy  succumbed,  not  because  they 
had  lost  their  former  congeniality  with  the  human  mind, 
but  because  they  could  not  compete  successfully  with 
certain  later  modes  of  thought. 

The  spread  or  progress  of  a  practice  or  belief  is  usually 
due  to  some  excellence  in  that  practice  or  belief.     Occa- 


INTERFERENCE  AND   CONFLICT  299 

sionally  the  regress  is  due  to  the  loss  of  this  excellence,  i.e.,  why  the 
to  changes  in  the  social  situation  which  deprive  it  of  its  °'^.  f  '^^'^" 

^  ^  ^  quished 

fitness.  Thus  indissoluble  marriage  is  a  misfit  as  soon 
as  women  have  become  individualized  and  economically 
emancipated.  The  town-meeting  plan  of  government 
exhibits  none  of  its  vaunted  merits,  once  the  town  has 
become  populous.  With  the  differentiation  in  the  forms 
of  property,  the  old  general  property  tax  becomes  a 
scandal.  Generally,  however,  the  decay  of  a  social  form 
is  due  simply  to  the  encroachments  of  a  successful  rival. 
Sometimes  the  regress  of  A  is  nothing  but  the  obverse  of 
the  progress  of  its  substitute  B.  Thus,  the  decline  curve 
of  stage-coaches  is  just  the  growth  curve  of  railroads, 
turned  upside  down.  So,  in  the  losing  battle  of  sail  with 
steam,  of  wooden  ships  with  iron  ships,  of  church  educa- 
tion with  secular  education,  the  graph  of  the  decadence 
of  the  one  answers  to  the  graph  of  the  progress  of  the 
other. 

Finally,  the  duel  between  two  forms  may  be  decided  Merit 
wholly  on  relative  merits.     When  we  hesitate  whether  to  ^samst 

•'  merit 

say  "telegraph"  or  "wire,"  "exposition"  or  "exhibition," 
"rubbers"  or  "overshoes,"  prestige  is  not  a  factor,  for 
the  thing  in  mind  is  recent.  So,  the  struggle  between 
banjo  and  accordion,  decimal  fractions  and  vulgar  frac- 
ions,  French  quotation  marks  and  English  quotation 
marks,  sloping  handwriting  and  upright  handwriting, 
cane  sugar  and  beet  sugar,  the  English  saddle  and  the 
American  saddle,  is  decided  essentially  upon  the  basis  of 
comparative  excellence. 

Among  the  means  of  deciding  the  silent  struggle  are 
authority,  persecution,  example,  observation,  and  trial. 

Authority  refers  to  the  one  man,  or  small  body  of  men, 


30O 


SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 


Settling 
conflict  by 
autkoritj 


The  case  of 
Joseph  II 


having  the  power  to  end  a  struggle  summarily.  In  in- 
numerable minds  of  the  fourth  century  a.d.  the  issue 
between  the  old  faith  and  the  new  was  settled  by  the 
conversion  of  the  Emperor  Constantine  to  Christianity. 
The  will  of  a  few  score  of  men  imposed  the  gold  standard 
on  Russia,  whereas,  in  the  United  States,  the  matter  had 
to  be  argued  before  a  jury  of  thirteen  million  voters.  In 
one  church  "Rome  speaks,"  and  there  is  a  sudden  silence; 
in  another  the  battle  goes  on  until  settled  by  the  vote  of 
an  (Ecumenical  Council  or  a  General  Assembly;  in  a 
third  it  continues  until  the  members  have  made  up  their 
minds  for  one  side  or  the  other,  and  the  conflict  dies  down 
for  lack  of  fresh  material. 

For  thinkers  of  a  certain  school,  the  intervention  of  the 
benevolent  autocrat,  or  the  initiative  of  an  enlightened 
aristocracy  is  an  ideal  short-cut  to  social  reform.  It 
seems  so  easy  for  the  social  philosopher  to  set  things 
right  simply  by  winning  over  to  his  ameliorative  projects 
a  Frederick  the  Great  or  a  Napoleon.  The  fiasco  of  the 
reforming  Emperor  Joseph  II  of  Austria  shows,  however, 
what  is  likely  to  happen  when  struggle,  instead  of  agitating 
the  minds  of  the  entire  people,  is  confined  to  the  mind  of 
an  autocrat. 

"He  was  penetrated  by  the  characteristic  ideas  of  the 
eighteenth  century  as  to  the  duties  of  an  absolute  monarch, 
and  began  at  once  to  give  effect  to  them  in  a  fearless  and 
almost  revolutionary  spirit.  His  first  step  was  to  combine 
the  various  nationalities  subject  to  him  into  a  single  state 
with  thirteen  administrative  districts.  He  refused  to  be 
crowned  king  of  Hungary,  and  would  not  summon  the 
Hungarian  diet,  insisting  that  the  country  should  be 
governed  as  a  province,  and  causing  German  to  be  used  as 


INTERFERENCE  AND   CONFLICT  301 

the  official  language.  Among  other  reforms  he  proclaimed 
the  abolition  of  serfdom,  substituted  various  punishments 
for  the  capital  penalty,  established  common  tribunals, 
and  issued  new  codes  based  on  the  principle  that  all 
citizens  are  equal  before  the  law.  He  transferred  the 
censorship  of  books  from  the  clergy  to  laymen  of  liberal 
sympathies,  and  granted  complete  freedom  to  journalism. 
He  instituted  public  libraries  and  observatories,  founded 
a  medical  college  in  Vienna,  a  university  in  Lemberg, 
and  schools  for  the  middle  classes  in  various  parts  of  the 
monarchy,  and  encouraged  art  by  offering  prizes  in  con- 
nection with  the  academy  of  the  plastic  arts.  Industry 
and  trade  he  fostered  by  destroying  many  monopolies, 
by  aiding  in  the  establishment  of  new  manufactures,  by 
raising  Fiume  to  the  position  of  a  free  harbor,  and  by 
opening  the  Danube  to  his  subjects  from  its  source  to  the 
Black  Sea.  ...  In  1781  he  issued  an  edict  of  toleration, 
granting  freedom  of  worship  to  all  Protestants  and  to  mem- 
bers of  the  Greek  Church;  and  between  1782  and  1790 
about  700  monasteries  were  closed,  the  members  of  religious 
orders  being  reduced  from  63,000  to  27,000.  All  these 
changes  were  well  meant,  but  the  emperor,  in  the  ardor  of 
his  philanthropy,  shot  too  far  ahead  of  the  prevailing  sen- 
timent of  his  people.  Moreover,  his  good  intentions  were 
often  rendered  fruitless  by  unskilful  or  unsympathetic  sub- 
ordinates. In  nearly  every  part  of  the  monarchy  discon- 
tent soon  manifested  itself,  and  some  of  the  inhabitants  of 
Tyrol  broke  into  open  rebellion.  The  Hungarians  bitterly 
resented  the  suppression  of  their  ancient  privileges,  and  in 
1787  the  emperor's  new  institutions  led  in  several  dis- 
tricts to  a  furious  conflict  between  the  peasantry  and  the 
nobles.     The  estates  of  the  Austrian  Netherlands  per- 


302  SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

sistently  opposed  the  execution  of  his  schemes,  the  clergy 
being  especially  active  in  stirring  up  popular  indignation. 
...  In  Hungary  there  was  so  dangerous  an  agitation 
that  in  January,  1790,  Joseph  had  to  undo  almost  every- 
thing he  had  attempted  to  accomplish  in  that  country 
during  the  previous  nine  years;  he  succeeded  only  in 
maintaining  the  decrees  by  which  he  had  abolished  serf- 
dom and  established  toleration.  Thus  his  last  days  were 
rendered  miserable  by  the  conviction  that  his  career  had 
been  a  failure." 
Let  a  con-  An  abrupt,  Jovian  intervention  is,  therefore,  not  always 

fou  M  ut  ^^  beneficent  as  it  promises  to  be.  It  is  infinitely  more 
trouble  to  convert  a  people  than  to  win  over  a  monarch, 
but  the  results  are  more  lasting.  Though  large  bodies 
move  slowly,  they  rarely  recoil.  The  submitting  of  on- 
ward measures  to  million-headed  Demos  looks  clumsy 
indeed,  and  yet  it  is  democratic  societies  that  to-day  are 
the  most  consistently  progressive.  So,  it  may  be  better 
for  society  to  rely  on  its  own  powers  than  to  be  forced 
ahead  by  a  reforming  Numa  or  Solon.  The  presence  of 
an  authority  having  the  right  to  decide  for  all,  cuts  the 
nerve  of  propagandist  zeal  and  interrupts  the  education 
of  the  people.  Therefore,  better  free  speech  and  free 
press  than  the  enlightened  autocrat.  That  monarch  does 
best  who,  instead  of  introducing  social  reforms  offhand, 
provides  those  educational  agencies  that  build  his  people 
up  to  the  point  where  they  can  reform  matters  for  them- 
selves. 
Then  it  does  Experience  shows,  moreover,  that,  if  struggle  goes  on 
to  a  finish,  there  is  often  no  root  of  bitterness  left,  and 
no  possibility  of  the  resurrection  of  error.  In  this  coun- 
try, the  fight  for  public  education,  for  religious  freedom, 


not  break 
out  afresh 


1 


INTERFERENCE  AND   CONFLICT  303 

for  separation  of  church  and  state,  against  imprisonment 

for  debt,  and  against  the  property  qualification  of  the 

suffrage  went  on  to  a  finish,  and  hence  it  is  impossible  to 

reopen  those  questions  here. 

Persecution   is   another   inviting    "short-cut"    to   una-  Persecution 

nimity;    but  sometimes  it  is  not  so  short  after  all.     For  '^l'^^7!!f 
-'  '  settle  con- 

persecution  interrupts  the  other  processes  that  are  work-  flicts 

ing  in  your  favor.  Once  resort  to  violence,  and  you  can 
no  longer  persuade.  Persecution  causes  the  persecuted 
to  draw  together,  encourage  one  another,  and  associate 
only  with  one  another.  It  closes  them  to  the  influences 
of  reason  and  interest  that  otherwise  would  work  upon 
them  and  win  them  over.  Spain's  attempt  to  drive  the 
Moriscos  into  orthodoxy  made  them  a  sullen,  disaffected 
mass  which  finally  had  to  be  deported,  to  the  lasting 
injury  of  the  country.^  In  Alsace-Lorraine,  Germany 
chose  the  attractive  method  of  influencing  the  struggle  of 
German  with  French.  In  Schleswig-Holstein,  Prussia 
adopted  the  coercive  method  of  insuring  the  victory  of 
German  over  Danish.  The  result  is  progress  in  the 
former  case,  defeat  in  the  latter.  The  fact  is,  in  all  cul- 
ture struggles,  resort  to  brute  force  invigorates  the  thing 
aimed  at.  "The  blood  of  the  martyrs  is  the  seed  of  the 
Church."  Antiochus's  rash  attempt  to  force  Hellenism 
upon  the  Jews  brought  on  the  Maccabean  revolution,  and 
made  the  Jews  impervious  to  the  Greek  culture.  Lati- 
mer's prophecy  to  Ridley  when  he  was  led  out  to  be 
burned  under  Bloody  Mary,  "  We  shall  this  day  light  such 
a  candle  in  England  as  shall  not  soon  be  put  out,"  is  veri- 
fied in  the  anti-Catholic  bias  of  England  to  this  day. 
Russia's  ruthless  endeavor  to  drive  the  Juggernaut  car  of 

*Lea,  "The  Moriscos  of  Spain." 


304 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


her  civilization  over  the  little  peoples  —  the  Esthonians, 
Letts,  Poles,  Finns,  and  Georgians  —  has  been  a  ghastly 
failure. 
Thepsy-  It  is  not  that  the  persecuted  are  right.     Martyrdom 

choiogy  of  proves  the  truth  of  nothing.  Any  body  of  homogeneous 
people  cruelly  persecuted  for  some  innocent  thing  will 
produce  martyrs.  If  a  tyrant  commands  men  who  shave 
to  let  the  beard  grow,  there  will  presently  arise  a  little 
fanatical  sect  of  "shavers,"  and  here  and  there  one  will 
burn  at  the  stake  rather  than  give  up  the  razor.  The 
martyr  spirit,  then,  is  a  mark  not  of  truth,  but  of  collective 
reaction.  This  is  why  religious  persecution,  though  it 
sometimes  succeeds  (Spain,  Bohemia,  France,  the  extirpa- 
tion of  Buddhism  in  Hindustan),  is  always  a  harder  task 
than  the  persecutor  anticipated.  Moreover,  he  runs  the 
terrible  risk  of  interfering  on  the  wrong  side  after  all. 
The  tragic  consequences  of  the  Church's  persecution  of 
Roger  Bacon  are  thus  stated  by  White  :  *  — 

"Sad  is  it  to  think  of  what  this  great  man  might  have 
given  to  the  world  had  ecclesiasticism  allowed  the  gift. 
He  held  the  key  of  treasures  which  would  have  freed 
mankind  from  ages  of  error  and  misery.  With  his  dis- 
coveries as  a  basis,  with  his  method  as  a  guide,  what 
might  not  the  world  have  gained !  Nor  was  the  wrong 
done  to  that  age  alone ;  it  was  done  to  this  age  also.  The 
nineteenth  century  was  robbed  at  the  same  time  with  the 
thirteenth.  But  for  that  interference  with  science  the 
nineteenth  century  would  be  enjoying  discoveries  which 
will  not  be  reached  before  the  twentieth  century,  and  even 
after  it.     Thousands  of  precious  lives  shall  be  lost,  tens  of 

*  "History  of  the  Warfare  of  Science  with  Theology  in  Christendom," 
I,  39°- 


INTERFERENCE   AND   CONFLICT  305 

thousands  shall  suffer  discomfort,  privation,  sickness, 
poverty,  ignorance,  for  lack  of  discoveries  and  methods 
which,  but  for  this  mistaken  dealing  with  Roger  Bacon 
and  his  compeers,  would  now  be  blessing  the  earth. 

"In  two  recent  years  sixty  thousand  children  died  in 
England  and  in  Wales  of  scarlet  fever ;  probably  quite  as 
many  died  in  the  United  States.  Had  not  Bacon  been 
hindered,  we  should  have  had  in  our  hands  by  this  time 
the  means  to  save  two-thirds  of  these  victims;  and  the 
same  is  true  of  typhoid,  typhus,  cholera,  and  that  great 
class  of  diseases  of  whose  physical  causes  science  is  just 
beginning  to  get  an  inkling.  Put  together  all  the  efforts 
of  all  the  atheists  who  have  ever  lived,  and  they  have  not 
done  so  much  harm  to  Christianity  and  the  world  as  has 
been  done  by  the  narrow-minded,  conscientious  men  who 
persecuted  Roger  Bacon,  and  closed  the  path  which  he 
gave  his  life  to  open." 

Example,  Observation,  Trial.  —  A  farmer  may  favor  one 
of  two  rival  reapers,  (i)  because  leading  farmers  champion 
and  introduce  it,  (2)  because  observation  of  the  experi- 
ence of  others  shows  its  superiority,  or  (3)  because  he  has 
tried  both  and  found  it  the  better.  These  three  are  the 
leading  factors  in  silent  struggles,  whether  of  two  models 
of  bicycle,  two  styles  of  house  decoration,  two  types  of 
sport,  two  standards  of  journalism,  or  two  ideals  of  manhood. 

There  is,  however,  a  tendency  for   silent  struggle  to  silent  con- 
become   vocal.     Rival    authorities   appeal    to   argument;  f'*^*^^o^!^° 
the  persecutor  uses  reasons  as  more  effective  with  some  intodis- 
than  force;   example  is  reenforced  by  persuasion;   obser-  '=^^'°^ 
vation  leads  to  formal  comparison;  calculation  takes  the 
place  of  trial.     The  rival  arguments,  reasons,  persuasives, 
comparisons,  and  calculations  amount  to  discussion. 

X 


3o6  SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

SUMMARY 

Incompatible  beliefs  or  practices  propagated  from  different  points 
in  time  or  space  eventually  come  into  conflict  with  each  other. 

The  conflict  may  be  either  of  two  types  —  silent  conflict  or  dis- 
cussion. 

Silent  conflict  presents  three  cases  —  prestige  against  prestige, 
prestige  against  merit,  merit  against  merit. 

The  regress  of  a  belief  or  practice  is  not  the  reverse  of  its  previ- 
ous progress,  but  the  obverse  of  the  progress  of  its  successful  rival. 

Possible  factors  in  the  issue  of  a  silent  conflict  are  authority,  per- 
secution, example,  observation,  and  trial. 

Authority  may  decide  conflict  speedily,  but  its  settlement  is  not 
always  lasting. 

Persecution  is  costly  and  checks  the  milder  influences  that  help  to 
settle  a  conflict. 

Silent  conflict  tends  to  pass  over  into  discussion. 

EXERCISES 

1.  Show  the  social  psychology  under  the  maxim,  "  Nothing  suc- 
ceeds Like  success." 

2.  Show  that  conflict  —  whether  silent  or  vocal  —  between  pres- 
tiges, tends  to  broaden  out;  between  merits,  tends  to  narrow  down. 

3.  What  is  the  chief  cause  of  the  death  of  institutions  in  a  dy- 
namic society  ?     In  a  progressive  society  ? 

4.  Is  there  more  place  for  authority  in  settling  public  questions 
than  in  settUng  private  questions? 

5.  Ought  the  conflict  between  types  of  water  filtration  or  sewage 
disposal  or  armor  plate  to  be  settled  by  the  voters  or  by  authority  ? 
What  class  of  pubhc  questions  should  be  settled  by  the  voters  ? 

6.  Is  it  persecution  to  punish  a  man  for  relying  on  Christian  Sci- 
ence or  "  absent  treatment  "  when  his  wife  or  his  child  is  seriously  ill? 

7.  Is  it  wrong  to  punish  those  who  persist  in  folly  that  hurts  only 
themselves,  or  merely  inexpedient  ? 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

DISCUSSION 

Sometimes  a  struggle  can  be  summarily  closed  by  in-  Discussion 
yoking  some  authority  acknowledged  by  both  sides;  for  ^torof^^^'" 
example,  the  Pope  on  dogma,  Tyndall  on  spontaneous  conflict 
generation,  the  Prince  of  Wales  on  some  point  of  eti- 
quette.    Oftener,  however,  it  is  discussion  that  settles  a 
struggle  when  it  reaches  an  acute  stage.     For  discussion 
hurries   conflicts   to   a  conclusion.     Sixty   years   ago   the 
silent  struggle  between  man  and  woman  became  vocal, 
and  the  result  has  been  a  hasty  removal  of  many  barriers 
that  hemmed  in  woman,  and  a  rapid  improvement  in  her 
social   position.     In   the   United   States,   African  slavery 
would,  no  doubt,  have  died  out  in  time  by  the  silent  opera- 
tion of  economic  and  moral  forces,  but  discussion  greatly 
hastened  its  end.     Since,  about  a  generation  ago,  a  few 
bold  spirits  began  to  ask  "Why?"  in  public,  the  religious 
tabu  on  theatre,  dancing,  card-playing,  secular  literature 
and  art,  has  loosened  more  than  in  all  the  previous  interval 
since  the  Puritan  Commonwealth.     So,  the  disapproval 
of  drinking  has  developed  more  in  the  seventy  years  since 
Father  Mathew  began  the  temperance  agitation,  than  in 
the  two  centuries  before.     Hence,  all  losing  sides  dread  Doomed 
discussion,  for  it  shortens  their  lease  of  life.     Silence  is  dkcussion* 
for  them  a  kind  of  reprieve.     Their  instinct,  then,  is  to 
choke  off  discussion  at  all  hazards.     The  geocentrists  got 
the  Papal  Index  for  nearly  two  hundred  years  to  forbid 

307 


3o8  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

the  faithful  from  reading  "all  books  which  affirm  the 
motion  of  the  earth."  The  Index  of  the  books  abso- 
lutism forbids  to  be  printed  or  circulated  in  Russia  reads 
like  a  list  of  the  monumental  works  of  modern  research 
and  thought.  The  tottering  Old  Regime  in  France  per- 
secuted and  hounded  the  Encyclopedists.  The  German 
monarchists  long  sought  to  withstand  the  rising  tide  of 
social  democracy  with  a  "law  of  associations  and  meet- 
ings." The  French  miUtarists  endeavored  to  gag  discus- 
sion of  the  Dreyfus  case.  In  the  lower  South  after  1835 
all  open  criticism  of  slavery  was  prohibited,  and  on  the 
border  desperate  means  were  taken  to  silence  the  abo- 
litionists.^ In  the  state  of  Delaware  and  in  the  city  of 
Detroit  frantic  attempts  have  been  made  by  rich  tax- 
dodgers  to  throttle  single-tax  speakers. 
Curative  Conversely,  the  side  that  feels  sure  of  its  case  does  not 

power  of  free  pej-gecutc.     Therefore    it  is  safe  to  infer  that  the  cause 

discussion         '■ 

which  courts  publicity  and  discussion  has  time  on  its  side, 
whereas  the  cause  that  ducks,  slinks,  or  applies  the  gag, 

*  The  result  is  stated  by  Hart:  "Nothing  could  have  been  more  favor- 
able to  the  abolitionists  than  this  succession  of  outbreaks,  which  flashed 
public  attention  upon  Garrison,  Birney,  and  Lovejoy,  and  placed  their 
personal  character  in  the  strongest  contrast  to  the  means  employed  to 
silence  them.  Mob  violence  emphasized  the  fact  that  the  abolitionists 
were  not  acting  contrary  to  law,  and  it  aroused  the  fighting  spirit  of 
thousands  of  people  who  knew  very  little  about  the  controversy  except 
that  the  abolitionists  had  something  to  say  so  important  that  it  must  be 
prevented  by  violence  and  murder."  —  "Slavery  and  Abolition,"  249. 

"  To  assure  the  world  that  slavery  was  God-given,  hallowed  by  the 
experience  of  mankind,  enjoined  by  Scripture,  the  foundation  of  republican 
government,  the  source  of  all  Southern  blessings  —  and  then  to  insist 
that  it  could  be  overthrown  by  the  mere  wind  of  doctrine  —  was  a  con- 
fession that  it  was  really  unstable  and  iniquitous.  No  great  institution 
contributing  to  human  enlightenment  has  ever  needed  to  be  protected  by 
silence."  —  Ibid.,  312.     See  also  234-237. 


DISCUSSION  309 

ought  to  rest  under  suspicion.  Seeing  that  no  great 
wrong  can  long  survive  open  discussion,  we  may  char- 
acterize free  speech,  free  assemblage,  and  free  press  as  the 
rights  preservative  of  all  rights.  Safeguard  these  funda- 
mentals, and  the  rest  must  come.  This  is  why  free  gov- 
ernment, although  it  is  by  no  means  the  same  thing  as 
popular  government,  is  usually  the  vestibule  to  it.  When 
discussion  is  free,  all  use  of  violence  to  change  the  per- 
sonnet  or  the  form  of  government  is  criminal,  seeing  that 
a  peaceful  way  lies  open  to  the  reformer.  When,  on 
the  other  hand,  brute  force  is  employed  to  prevent  an 
unhappy  people  from  organizing  their  minds  into  that 
spiritual  structure  we  call  public  opinion,  they  have  as 
much  right  to  strike  out  destructively  as  the  householder 
who  wakes  to  find  the  fingers  of  a  burglar  closing  on  his 
throat. 

Discussion  presupposes  mental  contact,  hence  is  fav-  Growing 
ored  by  modern  facilities  for  communication, — press,  0°^'°^^^*^ 
telegraph,  cheap  travel,  cheap  books,  free  libraries,  etc.  sion 
These  substitute  discussion  of  principles  and  policies  for 
petty  gossip,  and  attention  to  general  concerns  for  atten- 
tion to  private,  family,  or  neighborhood  concerns.  There 
is  to-day  a  far  greater  amount  of  fructifying  discussion 
than  ever  before,  and  it  touches  more  topics,  plays  over 
more  of  life.  That  "nowadays  no  subject  is  sacred" 
means  that  every  belief,  practice,  and  institution  is  called 
upon  to  justify  itself.  Male  sexual  license,  the  indis- 
soluble marriage,  the  marriage  bond  itself,  are  required 
to  furnish  reasons.  It  is  coming  to  be  recognized  that 
there  is  nothing  of  concern  to  human  beings  which  may 
not  profitably  be  discussed  in  the  right  spirit,  by  the  right 
persons,  at  the  right  time.     This  is  why  the  downfall  of 


3IO  SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

an  effete  dogma,  the  abandonment  of  an  unwise  policy,  a 
harmful  practice,  a  vicious  custom,  or  a  wasteful  process, 
is  prompter  now  than  ever  before.  This  explains  the 
miracles  of  transformation  we  witness  in  human  relations 
and  arrangements.  It  is  because  that  great  radical.  Dis- 
cussion, invades  every  department  of  life  and  hurries  to  a 
close  long-smouldering  conflicts,  that  ours  is  such  a  revolu- 
tionary epoch.  "Age  of  endless  talk,"  sneers  the  cynic, 
forgetting  that,  but  for  the  copious  talk  and  print,  it  could 
not  be  an  age  of  reason  and  redress.  Well  has  it  been 
said :  — 
Talk  is  the  "It  is  Safe  to  suppose  that  one-half  of  the  talk  of  the 
great  world  on  subjects  of  general  interest  is  waste.     But  the 

changer  of  j  o 

opinion  Other  half  certainly  tells.     We  know  this  from  the  change 

in  ideas  from  generation  to  generation.  We  see  that 
opinions  which  at  one  time  everybody  held  became  absurd 
in  the  course  of  half  a  century,  —  opinions  about  religion 
and  morals  and  manners  and  government.  Nearly  every 
man  of  my  age  can  recall  old  opinions  of  his  own,  on  sub- 
jects of  general  interest,  which  he  once  thought  highly 
respectable,  and  which  he  is  now  almost  ashamed  of 
having  ever  held.  He  does  not  remember  when  he 
changed  them,  or  why,  but  somehow  they  have  passed 
away  from  him.  In  communities  these  changes  are  often 
very  striking.  The  transformation,  for  instance,  of  the 
England  of  Cromwell  into  the  England  of  Queen  Anne, 
or  of  the  New  England  of  Cotton  Mather  into  the  New 
England  of  Theodore  Parker  and  Emerson,  was  very 
extraordinary,  but  it  would  be  very  difficult  to  say  in 
detail  what  brought  it  about,  or  when  it  began.  Lecky 
has  some  curious  observations,  in  his  *  History  of  Ration- 
alism,' on  these  silent  changes  in  new  beliefs  apropos  of 


DISCUSSION  311 

the  disappearance  of  the  belief  in  witchcraft.  Nobody 
could  say  what  had  swept  it  away,  but  it  appeared  that 
in  a  certain  year  people  were  ready  to  burn  old  women  as 
witches,  and  a  few  years  later  were  ready  to  laugh  at  or 
pity  any  one  who  thought  old  women  could  be  witches. 
'At  one  period,'  says  he,  'we  find  every  one  disposed  to 
believe  in  witches;  at  a  later  period  we  find  this  predis- 
position has  silently  passed  away.'  The  belief  in  witch- 
craft may  perhaps  be  considered  a  somewhat  violent 
illustration,  like  the  change  in  public  opinion  about 
slavery  in  this  country.  But  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
it  is  talk  —  somebody's,  anybody's,  everybody's  talk  —  by 
which  these  changes  are  wrought,  by  which  each  genera- 
tion comes  to  feel  and  think  differently  from  its  predeces- 
sor. No  one  ever  talks  freely  about  anything  without 
contributing  something,  let  it  be  ever  so  little,  to  the 
unseen  forces  which  carry  the  race  on  to  its  final  destiny. 
Even  if  he  does  not  make  a  positive  impression,  he  counter- 
acts or  modifies  some  other  impression,  or  sets  in  motion 
some  train  of  ideas  in  some  one  else,  which  helps  to  change 
the  face  of  the  world.  So  I  shall,  in  disregard  of  the  great 
laudation  of  silence  which  filled  the  earth  in  the  days  of 
Carlyle,  say  that  one  of  the  functions  of  an  educated  man 
is  to  talk,  and,  of  course,  he  should  try  to  talk  wisely."  ^ 

In  areas  where,  after  all,  feeling  or  instinct^  not  reason,  when  con- 
decides,  discussion  can  do  little  to  accelerate  the  issue,  ^^o^e^syis 

' .  .  fruitful 

De  gustihus  non  est  disputandum.  Barren  are  discussions 
of  Italian  opera  and  German  opera,  asstheticism.  Whit- 
man's poetry.  Whistler's  "arrangements,"  race  amalga- 
mation. For  here  the  matter  is  one  of  taste,  and  a  com- 
mon basis  is  lacking.     The  best  type  of  discussion  is  that 

'  Godkin,  "Problems  of  Modern  Democracy,"  221-224. 


312  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

between  parties  who  agree  as  to  ends  and  differ  only  as 
to  means,  because  we  have  feelings  about  ends  but  are 
cold-blooded  in  choosing  means.  "Shall  we  by  law  pro- 
hibit child  labor?"  Compare  two  friends  of  children  dis- 
cussing this,  one  a  believer  in  state  action,  the  other  a 
believer  in  trade  union  action,  with  the  discussion  of  it 
between  a  philanthropist  and  a  factory  owner.  "Shall 
we  retain  the  Philippines?"  Compare  discussion  of  this 
between  two  men  whose  aim  is  the  welfare  of  the  natives, 
with  the  discussion  between  one  of  these  men  and  an 
exploiter  whose  maxim  is,  "The  Philippines  for  the 
Americans!"  "Shall  we  announce  from  the  pulpit  the 
results  of  the  Higher  Criticism?"  yields  a  very  different 
discussion  between  two  lovers  of  truth  than  between 
one  who  cares  only  for  truth  and  one  who  cares  only  for 
dogma.  "Shall  we  adopt  the  direct  primary?"  is  a 
much  more  fertile  topic  if  discussed  by  two  friends  of 
good  government  than  if  discussed  by  a  friend  of  good 
government  and  a  corrupt  boss.  When  means  or  methods 
are  in  question,  we  appeal  to  the  judgment;  when  ends 
are  in  question,  we  aim  at  the  feelings.  Thus,  the  pro- 
hibitionist tries  to  inspire  disgust  for  the  saloon.  His 
opponent  endeavors  to  arouse  resentment  against  "inter- 
ference with  personal  liberty." 
When  con-  Without  a  common  basis  discussion  becomes  wran- 
troversyis  gling,  the  effort  not  to  win  over  opponents,  but  to  win 
neutrals.  Hence,  ridicule  and  vilification,  coining  of 
epithets,  catch  phrases,  and  slogans.  Hence,  appeals  to 
passion  and  prejudice,  such  as  "Do  you  want  your  daugh- 
ter to  marry  a  nigger?"  "Vote  as  you  shot  —  against 
the  South!"  "Vote  for  the  Liberal  and  you  vote  for 
the  Boer!"     "Who  will  haul  down  the  flag?"     "God- 


DISCUSSION  313 

less"  public  schools!  "Freedom  of  contract."  "Drey- 
fusards."  "Little  Englanders."  An  inventory  of  the 
stock  appeals  of  a  political  campaign  shows  how  inapt  is 
the  phrase  "campaign  of  education."  The  really  profit- 
able discussion  of  political  questions  is  that  which  occurs 
before  the  subsidized  newspapers  and  the  hired  spell- 
binders have  filled  the  air  with  dust. 

The  reason  why  theological  controversy  so  fatally  de-  Theory  of 
scends  into  polemic  is  that  all  discussion  of  things  supernal  ^ai^poie^f' 
contains  the  seeds  of  degeneration.  It  is  owing  to  this  that 
we  hear  of  an  odium  theologicum,  but  not  of  an  odium 
scientiflcum.  Theologians  are  certainly  as  just  and 
kindly  men  as  scientists,  but  after  they  have  marshalled 
in  vain  their  texts  and  their  reasonings,  they  have  noth- 
ing else  to  appeal  to.  When  the  scientist  has  exhausted 
his  ammunition  without  effect,  he  can  go  after  fresh  evi- 
dence. It  is  not  easy  to  settle  by  observation  the  ques- 
tion of  the  open  Polar  Sea,  the  sources  of  the  Nile,  or  the 
canals  on  Mars;  but  it  is  child's  play  compared  with 
getting  decisive  facts  on  the  question  of  the  nature  of 
the  Godhead,  or  the  future  state  of  unbaptized  infants. 
Compare  the  battle  between  trans-substantiationists  and 
con-substantiationists,  homo-ousians  and  homoi-ousians, 
with  the  debate  between  the  Neo-Lamarckians  and  the 
Neo-Darwinians.  When  the  naturalists  found  they  could 
not  decide  the  question  without  more  facts,  they  declared  a 
truce  and  went  to  cutting  off  the  tails  of  successive  genera- 
tions of  mice  ! 

Sometimes,  as  in  the  struggle  between  two  prejudices,   The  path  of 
tastes,  or  prestiges,  both  disputants  wrangle;    but,  when  Regeneration 

^  "  ^  of  discussion 

a  merit  is  pitted  against  a  prestige  or  a  sentiment,  one 
side  argues  while  the  other  vituperates.     This  is  plainly 


314  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

seen  in  the  debates  on  the  social  recognition  of  negroes, 
the  recognition  of  the  labor  unions,  the  regulation  of 
corporations,  the  taxation  of  site  values,  and  women 
suffrage.  In  the  discussing  of  vivisection,  compulsory 
vaccination,  the  segregation  of  vice,  the  legal  control  of 
prostitution,  the  census-taking  of  disease,  etc.,  one  side 
appeals  to  reason,  the  other  to  sentiment.  Beyond 
wrangling  lie  the  appeals  that  rally  the  partisans  of  either 
side,  and  the  passing  of  the  struggle  from  the  realm  of 
social  psychology  into  that  of  pugilistics.* 

*  The  fatal  trend  is  shown  in  "Truthful  James's"  account  of  the  row 
"That  broke  up  our  Society  upon  the  Stanislow." 

"Now  nothing  could  be  finer  or  more  beautiful  to  see 
Than  the  first  six  months'  proceedings  of  that  same  Society, 
Till  Brown  of  Calaveras  brought  a  lot  of  fossil  bones 
That  he  found  within  a  tunnel  near  the  tenement  of  Jones. 

"  Then  Brown  he  read  a  paper,  and  he  reconstructed  there, 
From  those  same  bones,  an  animal  that  was  extremely  rare; 
And  Jones  then  asked  the  Chair  for  a  suspension  of  the  rules, 
Till  he  could  prove  that  those  same  bones  was  one  of  his  lost  mules. 

"  Then  Brown  he  smiled  a  bitter  smile,  and  said  he  was  at  fault. 
It  seemed  he  had  been  trespassing  on  Jones's  family  vault; 
He  was  a  most  sarcastic  man,  this  quiet  Mr.  Brown, 
And  on  several  occasions  he  had  cleaned  out  the  town. 

"  Now  I  hold  it  is  not  decent  for  a  scientific  gent 
To  say  another  is  an  ass,  —  at  least,  to  all  intent; 
Nor  should  the  individual  who  happens  to  be  meant 
Reply  by  heaving  rocks  at  him,  to  any  great  extent. 

"  Then  Abner  Dean  of  Angel's  raised  a  point  of  order,  when 
A  chunk  of  old  red  sandstone  took  him  in  the  abdomen, 
And  he  smiled  a  kind  of  sickly  smile,  and  curled  up  on  the  floor, 
And  the  subsequent  proceedings  interested  him  no  more. 

"  For,  in  less  time  than  I  write  it,  every  member  did  engage 
In  a  warfare  with  the  remnants  of  the  palaeozoic  age; 
And  the  way  they  heaved  those  fossils  in  their  anger  was  a  sin. 
Till  the  skull  of  an  old  mammoth  caved  the  head  of  Thompson  in." 

—  Bret  Harte,   "Poems." 


DISCUSSION  315 

The    efficacy    of   discussion    in    abbreviating    conflicts   Breaking  up 
depends  on  the  access  of  people  to  its  influence.     When  °^  ^°"^^ 

lumps 

folks  are  matted  together  into  impermeable  strata,  classes,  hastens 
or  communities,  the  ferment  of  discussion  operates  only  a-ssimilation 
on  the  exterior  of  the  mass.  Chinatown,  French  Canada, 
Liberia,  the  Ghetto,  the  slums,  the  Black  Belt  in  the 
South,  the  Hungarian  districts  in  Pennsylvania,  the  Men- 
nonite  villages  in  North  Dakota,  —  these  reveal  what  hap- 
pens when  social  islands  are  formed.  As  pulverizing  a 
lump  of  lime  hastens  its  slaking,  as  comminuting  food 
aids  digestion,  as  splintering  wood  accelerates  its  com- 
bustion, so  there  is  a  speedier  termination  of  the  conflict 
between  the  peculiar  and  the  general  when  social  lumps 
are  broken  up.  Such  has  been  the  effect  of  stirring  a 
Gentile  leaven  through  the  Mormon  communities.  Out- 
side the  cotton  belt,  slavery  brought  the  white  and  black 
races  into  close  personal  contact  and  hastened  the  civilizing 
of  the  blacks.  Since  emancipation  there  has  been  a 
marked  tendency  to  segregate,^  resulting  in  spots  in  condi- 
tions almost  Liberian.  The  French  Canadian  is  inaccessible 
to  modern  ideas  at  home,  but  he  succumbs  in  the  Massa- 
chusetts factory  town  where  discussion  and  example  have 
a  fair  chance  at  him.  The  effects  of  a  trade  union  in 
detaching  the  immigrant  from  his  clan  organizations  and 
exposing  him  to  the  play  of  Americanizing  influences  is 
thus  set  forth  by  Colonel  Wright  :^  ''In  every  trade  union.  The  trade 
however  conservative,  there  are  members  who  will  occa-  '^'^'^".a^s 

Amencan- 

sionally  get  the  floor  and  advise  their  hearers  to  vote  high  izer  of  the 
wages  and  shorter  hours  at  the  ballot  box.     As  the  groups  '°^'g''a^t 

*See  "America's  Race  Problems,"  115,  123-124,  128,  136-137. 
'U.  S.  Bulletin  of  Labor,  January',  1905,  "The  Influence  of  Trade 
Unions  on  Immigrants,"  6. 


3i6  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

of  Slovaks  gather  around  after  the  business  is  over  to  have 
these  things  explained  to  them,  many  get  their  first  real 
idea  of  what  the  ballot  and  election  day  mean,  and  the 
relation  of  these  to  the  Government  itself.  In  their  own 
home  countries  the  two  essential,  if  not  only,  elements  of 
the  peasant  and  agricultural  laborer's  mind  is  to  believe 
and  obey,  or  follow.  Advantage  is  taken  of  this  fact  here 
by  clan  politicians,  as  well  as  the  clan  leader  in  every  de- 
partment. Once  the  leader  can  make  these  people  believe 
in  him,  he  thinks  for  the  entire  group,  and  insists  that  their 
duty  consists  in  following  his  lead  implicitly.  Necessarily, 
the  trade  union,  in  order  to  get  them  to  break  away  from 
the  leader  that  opposed  the  union  on  industrial  lines,  would 
be  compelled  to  urge  them  to  consider  their  own  personal 
and  group  interests  as  wage  workers ;  to  think  and  act  for 
themselves  along  lines  where  they  know  the  real  conditions 
better  than  any  one  else,  and  certainly  better  than  their 
leader  in  a  child  insurance  society,  or  something  else  as 
remote.  Here,  too,  are  the  first  germs  of  what  may  be 
called  departmental  thinking  implanted  in  their  minds  — 
that  is,  that  while  a  leader  may  be  worthy  of  their  confi- 
dence in  one  thing,  it  does  not  necessarily  follow  that  he 
is  so  in  some  other  class  of  interests. 

"It  is  doubtful  if  any  organization  other  than  a  trade 
union  could  accomplish  these  things,  for  only  the  bread- 
and-butter  necessity  would  be  potent  enough  as  an  influ- 
ence to  bring  these  people  out  of  the  fixed  forms  and 
crystallizations  of  life  into  which  they  have  been  com- 
pressed. Certain  it  is  that  no  other  organization  is  attempt- 
ing to  do  this  work,  at  least  not  by  amalgamation,  which  is 
the  only  way  assimilation  can  be  secured  among  these  various 
foreign  elements.     The  drawing  of  these  people  away  from 


DISCUSSION  317 

their  petty  clique  leaders  and  getting  them  to  think  for 
themselves  upon  one  line  of  topics,  namely,  the  industrial 
conditions  and  the  importance  of  trade  organization,  result 
in  a  mental  uplift.  The  only  way  they  can  pull  a  Slovak 
away  from  his  leader  is  to  pull  him  up  until  he  has  gotten 
above  his  leader  along  the  lines  of  thought  they  are  work- 
ing on." 
In  discussion  three  phases  of  conflict  may  be  observed.  Three 

corresponding  to  the  possible  relations  between  two  in-  P^^'f*  °^ 
^  °  ^  vocal  con- 

compatible  beliefs  or  desires.^  flict 

I.  A  denies  or  opposes  B,  hut  B  does  not  deny  or 
oppose  A.  —  This  is  seen  when  A  is  an  established  dogma 
or  institution,  B  an  innovation.  The  book  that  gave  the 
world  the  heliocentric  theory  crept  forth  with  a  grovelling 
preface  to  the  effect  that  Copernicus  had  propounded  the 
doctrine  of  the  earth's  movement  not  as  a  fact,  but  as  a 
hypothesis !  Galileo  sought  to  reconcile  the  discoveries  of 
his  telescope  with  the  Scriptures,  and  when  he  brought  out 
his  Dialogo  signed  a  stultifying  preface  in  which  the 
Copernican  theory  was  virtually  exhibited  as  a  play  of  the 
imagination.  Boscovich,  obedient  Jesuit  that  he  was,  said : 
"I  regard  the  earth  as  immovable;  nevertheless  for  sim- 
plicity in  explanation  I  will  argue  as  if  the  earth  moves; 
for  it  is  proved  that  of  the  two  hypotheses  the  appearances 
favor  this  idea."  The  theologians,  on  the  other  hand, 
exaggerated  the  incompatibility  of  heliocentrism  with  their 
system.  They  declared  that  the  former  "vitiates  the 
whole  Christian  plan  of  salvation,"  "casts  suspicion  on  the 
doctrine  of  the  incarnation,"  "tends  toward  infidelity," 
"  is  of  all  heresies  the  most  abominable,  the  most  pernicious, 
the  most  scandalous.     Argument  against  the  immortality 

*See  Tarde,  "La  logique  sociale,"  138-141. 


31 8  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

of  the  soul,  the  existence  of  God,  and  the  incarnation, 
should  be  tolerated  sooner  than  an  argument  to  prove 
that  the  earth  moves."  The  author  was  denounced  as 
"heretic,"  "infidel,"  and  "atheist."  In  the  same  spirit 
the  theologian  denounces  early  geology  as  "infidel," 
while  geology  professes  no  antagonism  whatever  to  the 
Church.  The  mass  of  belief  behind  infant  science  is  so 
little  that  priests,  eager  to  crush  science  while  it  is  yet  weak, 
accentuate  the  contradiction  between  them ;  while  science, 
conscious  of  its  weakness,  avoids  conflict  and  pleads  only 
to  be  let  alone.  The  same  attitude  is  seen  in  certain  of 
the  early  Fathers  who  sought  to  propitiate  their  Pagan 
neighbors  by  emphasizing  the  agreements  between  Greek 
Philosophy  and  the  Christian  belief.  So  the  "rights  of 
man"  professed  nothing  subversive  at  first;  while  the 
privileged  orders  instantly  declared  war  on  them.  So  new 
tastes  timidly  introduce  themselves  alongside  the  older 
needs;  but  conservatives  promptly  oppose  "the  new- 
fangled foreign  luxuries"  as  Cato  denounced  Greek  works 
of  art  and  Asiatic  refinements. 

2.  A  and  B  mutually  deny  and  oppose  one  another. — 
This  is  the  phase  of  fiercest  contention,  when  the  new 
feels  strong  enough  to  throw  off  the  mask  and  declare 
its  downright  incompatibility  with  the  old.  Then  Luther 
succeeds  Erasmus;  Le  Place,  GaUleo;  Voltaire,  Des- 
cartes; Strauss,  Reimarus;  Huxley,  Darwin;  and 
Danton,  Mirabeau.  Astronomy,  finding  a  current  in  its 
favor,  no  longer  pretends  to  furnish  confirmation  for 
dogmas  which  respond  only  with  anathemas.  Science 
declares  war  on  the  traditional  cosmogony  and  boldly 
admits  that  theology  and  science  cannot  be  reconciled. 
So  democracy  takes  the  field  against  privilege,  and  labor 


DISCUSSION  319 

avows  that  it  aims  at  nothing  less  than  securing  for  the 
laborer  "the  whole  produce." 

3.  A  does  not  deny  or  oppose  B,  but  B  denies  or  op- 
poses A.  — The  confidence  in  the  methods  of  science  at 
last  becomes  so  great  that  theology  no  longer  dares  accen- 
tuate its  contradiction.  It  strives  to  compromise  with 
science,  clutches  eagerly  at  "scientific"  proofs/  and  seeks 
to  rebuild  its  shattered  dogmas  in  the  region  as  yet  un- 
subdued by  advancing  science.  Divines  eagerly  "recon- 
cile" Genesis  and  Geology,  but  geologists  go  on  with 
their  work  careless  whether  the  two  are  reconciled  or  not. 
Theology  forms  all  sorts  of  amalgam  with  science;  but 
science  declines  even  to  discuss,  and  passes  by  in  silent 
scorn  the  horde  of  bastard  theories.  So,  nowadays,  selfish 
privilege  no  longer  openly  opposes  democracy,  but  cham- 
pions "imperialism."  Capitalism  no  longer  flouts  the 
demand  for  legislation  to  protect  labor,  but  pleads  "con- 
stitutional limitations."  Men  no  longer  denounce  woman 
as  "strong-minded"  and  "unwomanly"  when  she  asks 
for  equal  opportunities,  but  profess  that  the  hampering 
restrictions  upon  her  are  in  the  interest  of  woman  her- 
self ! 

Such  are  the  phases  to  be  noticed  in  a  particular  logical  Discussion 
duel.     But  the  product  of  one  of  these  duels  becomes  the  ""'^^''g^^^ 

^  an  evolu- 

starting-point  of  the  next,  so  that  there  is  a  certain  evolu-  tion 
tion  of  discussion  to  be  discerned  in  the  history  of  a  civi- 

'  Speaking  of  Hoffmann's  "scientific"  theory  of  the  action  of  the  devil 
in  causing  Job's  boils,  White  says:  "This  effort  at  a  quasi-scienti&c 
explanation  which  should  satisfy  the  theological  spirit,  comical  as  it 
at  first  seems,  is  really  worthy  of  serious  notice,  because  it  must  be  con- 
sidered as  the  beginning  of  that  inevitable  effort  at  compromise  which  we 
see  in  the  history  of  every  science  when  it  begins  to  appear  triumphant." 
—  Op.  cit.  II,  62. 


320  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

lization.     The  cause  and  course  of  this  evolution  cannot 
be  better  stated  than  in  the  words  of  Tarde :  ^  — 

"It  is  only  after  the  mental  discussion  between  contra- 
dictory ideas  within  the  same  mind  has  ended,  that  any 
verbal  discussion  is  possible  between  two  men  who  have 
solved  the  question  differently.  Similarly,  if  verbal, 
written,  or  printed  discussions  between  groups  of  men,  and 
groups  that  are  ever  widening,  take  the  place  of  verbal 
discussion  between  two  men,  it  is  because  the  more  limited 
discussion  has  been  brought  to  an  end  by  some  relative 
and  temporary  agreement,  or  some  sort  of  unanimity. 
These  groups  are  first  split  up  into  an  endless  multitude 
of  little  coteries,  clans,  churches,  forums,  and  schools, 
which  combat  one  another;  but  at  length,  after  many 
polemics,  they  are  welded  into  a  very  small  number  of 
great  parties,  religions,  parliamentary  groups,  schools  of 
philosophy,  and  schools  of  art,  which  engage  one  another 
in  mortal  combat.  Was  it  not  thus  that  the  Catholic  faith 
became  gradually  established?  In  the  first  two  or  three 
centuries  of  the  Church's  history,  countless  discussions, 
always  intense  and  often  bloody,  were  waged  among  the 
members  of  each  local  church,  ending  in  their  agreeing 
upon  a  creed;  but  this  creed,  disagreeing  in  certain  par- 
ticulars with  those  of  neighboring  churches,  gave  rise 
to  conferences  and  provincial  councils,  which  solved  the 
difficulties,  excepting  that  they  occasionally  disagreed 
with  one  another,  and  were  forced  to  carry  their  disputes 
higher  up,  to  national  or  oecumenical  councils.  .  .  .  The 
unity  of  legal  codes  has  long  since  been  accomplished  in 
an  analogous  manner :  countless  local  customs  have  arisen, 
settling  thousands  of  individual  discussions  concerning 

^"Social  Laws,"  125-132  passim. 


DISCUSSION  321 

rights  (though  not  all,  as  the  court  records  prove) ;  these 
customs,  coming  into  conflict  with  one  another,  have  been 
reconciled  by  certain  sectional  customs,  which  have  finally 
been  replaced  by  uniform  legislation.  The  unity  of  science, 
operating  slowly  over  a  wide  field,  through  a  succession 
of  discussions,  alternately  settled  and  reopened,  among 
scientists  and  scientific  schools,  would  give  rise  to  similar 
reflections.  .  .  . 

"The  objection  may  possibly  be  raised  that  as  races  The  secular 
become  more  civilized  they  tend  more  and  more  to  dis-  ^g^tJof 
cussion,  and  that,  far  from  taking  the  place  of  private  discussion 
discussion,  our  publi  discussions,  polemics  of  the  press, 
and  parliamentary  debates  only  add  fuel  to  them.  But 
such  an  objection  would  be  without  force.  For  if  savages 
and  barbarians  discuss  little  (which  is  fortunate,  since 
most  of  their  discussions  degenerate  into  quarrels  and 
combats) ,  it  is  because  they  scarcely  speak  or  think  at  all. 
When  we  consider  the  very  small  number  of  their  ideas, 
we  ought  to  be  surprised  that  they  clash  so  often,  relatively 
speaking;  and  we  should  marvel  to  find  men  with  so  few 
different  interests  so  quarrelsome.  On  the  other  hand,  a 
thing  which  we  ought  to  wonder  at,  but  which  we  scarcely 
notice,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  is  this :  that  in  our  own  civilized 
cities,  despite  the  great  current  of  ideas  sweeping  over  us 
in  conversation  and  reading,  there  are,  on  the  whole,  so 
few  discussions,  and  these  so  lacking  in  warmth.  We 
should  be  amazed  to  find  that  men  who  think  and  talk 
so  much  contradict  one  another  so  seldom,  to  see  that  they 
accomplish  so  much  and  clash  so  little ;  just  as  we  should 
wonder  at  seeing  so  few  carriage  accidents  in  our  streets, 
which  are  so  animated  and  crowded,  or  at  seeing  so  few 
wars  break  out  in  this  era  of  complex  and  far-reaching 


322 


SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 


international  relations.  What  is  it,  then,  that  has  brought 
us  into  agreement  on  so  many  points?  It  is  the  three 
great  productions  that  have  been  gradually  wrought  out 
by  centuries  of  discussion ;  namely.  Religion,  Jurisprudence, 
and  Science.  .  .  . 

"To  sum  up.  The  strife  of  opposition  in  human  society, 
in  its  three  principal  forms  —  war,  competition,  and  dis- 
cussion —  proves  obedient  to  one  and  the  same  law  of 
development  through  ever  widening  areas  of  temporary 
pacification,  alternating  with  renewals  of  discord  more 
centrally  organized  and  on  a  larger  scale,  and  leading  up 
to  a  final,  at  least  partial,  agreement." 


SUMMARY 

Discussion  is  the  illuminating  flame  into  which  smouldering  con- 
flicts burst. 

All  losing  sides  dread  discussion  and  try  to  stamp  it  out. 

A  people  that  enjoys  free  discussion  is  likely  to  conquer  all  the 
other  freedoms  it  can  profitably  use. 

Discussion  is  sterile  in  matters  that  do  not  admit  of  being  decided 
by  the  reason. 

It  is  profitless  when  the  appeal  is  to  passion  and  prejudice  rather 
than  to  reason. 

There  is  a  well-marked  path  by  which  intellectual  battle  descends 
into  physical  collision. 

Social  lumps  cannot  become  incandescent  in  the  flame  of  discus- 
sion till  they  are  broken  up. 

With  respect  to  the  degree  of  aggressiveness  of  the  combatants  the 
conflict  between  new  and  old  presents  three  phases. 

Discussion  is  subject  to  the  same  law  of  development  as  the  other 
forms  of  opposition  in  society. 


DISCUSSION  323 

EXERCISES 

1.  Why  is  discussion  able  to  "hurry  conflicts  to  a  conclusion"? 

2.  What  are  the  rules  to  be  observed  in  order  that  discussion 
shall  be  enlightening  and  fruitful? 

3.  If  two  elements  in  a  group  differ  as  to  ends  and  neither  can 
influence  the  other  in  discussion,  by  what  means  can  they  be  brought 
to  abide  peacefully  together? 

4.  Show  that  the  battle  of  new  truth  is  sometimes  against  organ- 
ized dogmatism's  desire  to  limit  knowledge,  sometimes  against  organ- 
ized conservatism's  desire  to  limit  action. 

5.  Compare  the  methods  of  these  foes  of  new  truth  :  — 

a.  The  bigotry  of  the  ignorant. 

b.  The  impatience  of  the  temperamental  conservatives. 

c.  The  alarmed  self-interest  of  crafts,  professions,  or  classes 

"in  danger  to  be  set  at  nought." 


CHAPTER  XIX 


THE  RESULTS  OF  CONFLICT 


Certain  The  outcome  of  the  duel  between  rival  culture  elements 

conflicts         j^      j^g  various.     Some  strugdes  last  indefinitely  because 

continue  be-  ■'  ""  ■^ 

cause  people  of  ifibom  differences  between  human  beings.     This  is  akin 

differ  in         ^^  ^j^^  unccasing  warfare  between  highlanders  and  low- 
nature  "  ° 

landers,  or  between  nomads  and  sedentary  populations,  as 
in  Arabia.  Thus,  it  is  likely  that  the  great  rival  types  of 
diet,  that  with  sugar  and  that  of  sour,  heavy  foods  in 
association  with  liquor,  will  persist  because  they  correspond 
to  differences  of  palate.  Vowel  languages  and  consonant 
languages  seem  to  go  with  contrasted  types  of  race  psy- 
chology, and  it  is  little  likely  that  one  group  will  finally 
replace  the  other.  So  long  as  one  kind  of  man  strives  to 
rid  himself  of  risk,  while  another  type  welcomes  risk  as  a 
relish  and  a  stimulus,  the  feud  between  gambling  and  anti- 
gambling  will  continue.  It  is  not  likely  that  the  Presby- 
terian Church  will  in  the  end  absorb  all  the  Methodists 
or  the  Methodist  Church  absorb  all  the  Presbyterians, 
seeing  that  Presbyterian  intellectualism  and  Methodist 
emotionalism  appeal  to  different  temperaments,  and  each 
is  certain  to  find  a  following.  So,  in  ethical  opinion,  one 
type  of  man  leans  toward  the  justice  of  the  Old  Testament, 
while  another  type  is  attracted  by  the  brotherly  love  of  the 
New  Testament. 
Or  because  Or,  the  struggle  may  continue  because  it  is  a  duel  between 
people  are      ^^  illusion  and  a  Paradox.     The  world  is  round  but  seems 

born  young  ^ 

flat,  moves  but  seems  stationary.     Each  new  generation  is 

324 


THE  RESULTS   OF   CONFLICT  335 

staggered  at  this  dilemma,  and,  however  early  or  impres- 
sively we  teach  the  doctrine  of  heliocentrism,  there  is  a 
brief  struggle  in  the  pupil's  mind  between  the  authority 
of  the  text-book  and  the  evidence  of  his  senses.  Now, 
in  just  the  same  way,  the  conflict  between  self-indulgence 
and  temperance  is  always  breaking  out  afresh,  because  it 
is  a  paradox  to  say  that  the  way  to  be  happy  is  to  quit 
when  you  still  want  more.  The  illusion  of  Epicureanism 
fights  always  with  the  paradox  of  Stoicism,  for  what  seems 
more  absurd  on  its  face  than  weeding  out  your  desires 
instead  of  trying  to  gratify  them  all?  In  the  reform  of 
public  morals  the  champions  of  physical  force  never 
surrender  to  the  believers  in  moral  suasion,  for  what  looks 
more  foolish  than  improving  the  conduct  of  men  by  the 
tedious  method  of  persuasion  when  you  can  threaten  them 
with  the  mailed  fist?  It  is  because  the  path  of  life  is  so 
thickset  with  these  pitfalls  of  illusion  that  it  is  necessary 
to  maintain  a  distinct  profession  —  the  clergy  —  to  teach 
people  the  beneficent  moral  paradoxes  that  save  them  from 
these  pitfalls. 

In  the  second  place,  struggles  may  terminate ;  but  here 
we  can  distinguish  three  cases. 

In  the  first  case,  one  side  is  silenced  or  convinced.     This  Conflicts 
can  be  compared  to  a  warfare  resulting  in  the  extermina-  l^g^^^^^i^  ^ 
tion  of  one  belligerent  by  the  other.     In  silent  conflict  the  tion  of  one 
use  of  the  preposition  has  triumphed  over  the  declension  otj^gj.^*  " 
ending  of  the  noun  and  the  use  of  the  auxiliary  verb  over 
the  inflection  ending  of  the  verb.     Short  hair  for  men  has 
triumphed  over  long  hair;    and  for  the  women  of  the 
Germanic  peoples,  the  flowing  dress  of  southern  Europe 
has  prevailed  over  the  close-fitting  dress  congenial  to  the 
northern   races.     Thus  have  been  exterminated   armor, 


326 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


Or  by  their 
coming  to- 
gether on  a 
middle 
ground 


knee-breeches,  the  spinning-wheel,  the  morality  play,  the 
Christmas  carol.  In  the  sphere  of  vocal  conflict  there  is 
the  victory  of  the  principle  of  public  trial,  of  equality  of 
all  before  the  law,  of  the  freedom  of  the  press,  of  religious 
toleration;  the  utter  extermination  of  astrology,  mesmer- 
ism, the  doctrine  of  "signatures,"  the  "special  creation" 
hypothesis,  the  "chosen  people"  dogma,  the  doctrine  of 
Divine  Right,  the  policy  of  free  banking,  the  practice  of 
judicial  torture,  the  principle  of  imprisonment  for  debt. 

In  the  second  case,  the  struggle  ends  because  a  middle 
ground  is  found  upon  which  both  parties  can  stand.  This 
is  analogous  to  the  warfare  ending  in  the  assimilation  and 
amalgamation  of  the  combatants.  The  ancient  duel  be- 
tween fatalism  and  free  will  terminates  in  the  acceptance 
of  the  scientific  determinism  which  insists  that  every 
volition  must  have  its  cause  in  the  self,  yet  recognizes  no 
decree  of  an  outside  fate,  and  admits  that  the  self  that  wills 
may  be  a  purified  self  wrought  out  by  a  ceaseless  endeavor 
to  realize  a  personal  ideal.  The  battle  between  centrali- 
zation and  local  government  dies  down  in  the  general 
recognition  of  the  fact  that  the  nature  of  the  particular 
function  decides  whether  it  can  best  be  discharged  by  a 
local  unit,  or  ought  to  be  passed  up  to  the  general  govern- 
ment. The  controversy  between  romanticists  and  natural- 
ists issues  in  the  agreement  that,  while  the  writer  must  treat 
his  material  in  strict  fidelity  to  real  life,  he  has  an  infinite 
field  to  choose  his  material  from,  and  he  has  no  excuse  for 
producing  a  work  that  is  repulsive  or  demoralizing.  In 
political  economy  the  rivalry  between  the  abstinence  and 
the  productivity  theories  of  interest  ends  in  the  recognition 
that  two  reasons  are  as  necessary  to  a  theory  of  interest  as 
two  blades  to  a  pair  of  scissors;    that  the  reluctance  to 


THE   RESULTS   OF   CONFLICT  327 

save  causes  interest  to  be  demanded  for  the  use  of  capital, 
and  the  productivity  of  that  capital  enables  the  interest 
to  be  paid.  The  fight  between  natural  science  and  the 
ancient  classics  for  the  dominant  place  in  the  college 
curriculum  is  quieted  by  bringing  to  the  front  a  third 
group,  the  social  sciences  (history,  civics,  economics,  soci- 
ology) ,  which  contribute  a  certain  discipline  neither  of  the 
other  groups  can  impart. 

In  the  third  case,  the  struggle  ends  because  specializa-  Or  by  a  par- 
Hon  takes  place.  This  is  akin  to  warfare  that  terminates  j.j^ 
by  partition  of  territory  between  the  parties.  In  the  com- 
petition between  sail  and  steam  it  is  found  that  wind  power 
is  still  the  cheapest  agency  for  moving  coarse,  slow  freight. 
Once  it  was  supposed  that  the  locomotive  would  completely 
oust  the  stage-coach ;  but  there  are  sixty-odd  stage  routes 
maintained  to-day  in  the  state  of  California,  and  the 
stage-coach  is  still  by  far  the  cheapest  method  of  trans- 
porting a  small  number  of  passengers  over  a  mountain 
route.  Far  from  being  vanquished  by  the  railroad,  the 
inland  waterway  finds  in  the  moving  of  heavy  freight,  like 
stone,  coal,  lumber,  and  brick,  a  field  of  usefulness  in  which 
it  is  perfectly  able  to  hold  its  own.  Likewise,  in  the  com- 
petition between  steam  power  and  water  power,  hard  coal 
and  soft  coal,  large  industry  and  small  industry,  steam 
railroad  and  electric  interurban,  it  is  finally  discovered 
that,  instead  of  fighting  to  the  death,  each  of  the  rivals 
has  a  field  in  which  it  is  secure  from  the  pursuit  of  the 
other.  Only  the  common  border  of  these  two  fields  is 
debatable  land.  The  interference  between  "admittance" 
and  "admission"  ends  when  one  is  used  for  the  act  of 
letting  in,  the  other  for  permission  to  come  in.  The  clash 
between  "visit"  and  "visitation"  is  settled  when  the  latter 


328  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

term  is  reserved  for  the  more  formal  and  official  act.  In 
vocal  conflict  we  see  the  long  rivalry  between  the  patriar- 
chal and  the  contract  theories  of  social  genesis  die  away 
as  one  is  seen  to  hold  for  the  genetic  grouping,  the  other 
for  the  congregate  grouping.  The  battle  between  intui- 
tionism  and  utilitarianism  ends  as  soon  as  the  theory  of  evo- 
lution makes  it  clear  that,  on  the  one  hand,  natural  selec- 
tion will  fix  in  human  nature  other-regarding  impulses ;  on 
the  other  hand,  that  such  impulses  can  refer  only  to  con- 
duct promoting  the  survival  of  the  social  group  or  the 
species.  Evolution,  likewise,  divides  the  honors  between 
optimism  and  pessimism  by  insisting  with  the  optimists 
that  the  processes  of  adaptation  tend  continually  to  bring 
the  species  into  harmony  with  its  environment,  and  ad- 
mitting with  the  pessimists  that  these  processes  are  so 
slow  that  men  may  be  very  poorly  fitted  to  be  happy  amid 
the  artificial  conditions  imposed  by  the  growth  of  their 
numbers  and  their  wants. 
No  question  Sometimes  the  division  is  unscientific,  and  later  on  the 
IS  settled  tiU    (jjgcussion  breaks  out  again.     Is  the  Bible  errant  or  iner- 

it  IS  settled  '=' 

right  rant  ?     Solved  by  declaring  it  to  be  infallible  for  religious 

truth.  But  the  progress  of  the  Higher  Criticism  seems 
to  make  this  distinction  no  longer  tenable.  The  struggle 
between  Church  and  State  appeared  to  be  settled  by  the 
ingenious  distinction  between  "temporal"  and  "spiritual" 
power.  Let  the  State  deal  with  the  body,  the  Church  with 
the  soul.  But  this  demarcation  no  longer  serves  when  the 
State  confronts  such  problems  as  the  civil  control  of  mar- 
riage, the  freedom  of  the  press,  the  care  of  dependents, 
and  the  promotion  of  education.  So,  the  slavery  com- 
promises in  the  Federal  Constitution,  and  the  acts  of  Con- 
gress finally  proved  unable  to  repress  conflict,  and  men 


THE   RESULTS    OF   CONFLICT  329 

came  to  realize  that  "the  Union  cannot  endure  half  slave 
and  half  free." 

SUMMARY 

Not  all  duels  between  rival  elements  of  culture  terminate. 

Some  persist  because  society  always  includes  great  diversities  of 
taste,  temperament,  and  mental  habit. 

Others  persist  because  experience  establishes  some  truths  which 
seem  paradoxical  to  the  young. 

When  duels  terminate  they  end  in  three  different  ways. 

Some  end  because  one  side  is  annihilated  by  the  other. 

Some  end  because  a  more  comprehensive  principle  or  policy  is 
found  which  includes  and  supersedes  them  both. 

Finally,  some  end  because  each  side  has  found  a  position  from 
which  it  cannot  be  dislodged. 

EXERCISES 

1.  Why  is  it  that  almost  invariably  truth  or  wisdom  is  found  to 
be  with  neither  extremist  in  a  controversy  but  somewhere  between 
the  extremists? 

2.  Why  is  a  law  or  institution  apt  to  be  the  offspring  of 'a  com- 
promise; a  reigning  belief,  moral  standard  or  personal  ideal,  the 
survivor  of  a  logical  duel  ? 

3.  Show  that  some  institutions  —  e.g.,  the  jury  system  —  are  sub- 
ject to  endless  controversy  because  their  faults  lie  nearer  the  surface 
than  their  merits. 

4.  Show  that  some  discussions  run  on  because  the  ulterior  con- 
sequences of  a  policy  —  say  outdoor  poor  relief  —  contradict  its 
immediate  results,  or  because  its  advantages  —  say  the  institutional 
care  of  children  —  admit  of  readier  formulation  than  its  dis- 
advantages. 

5.  Show  that  some  conflicts  are  protracted  because  one  side  can 
state  its  case  more  freely  than  the  other  —  e.g.,  indissoluble  marriage 
vs.  divorce. 


CHAPTER  XX 


UNION   AND    ACCUMULATION 


As  culture 
grows  the 
conflicts  be- 
tween new 
and  old  be- 
come more 
acute 


Alternative  to  the  advance  of  culture  by  conflict  and 
substitution  is  advance  by  union  and  accumulation.  This 
is,  in  fact,  the  prior  process.  Accumulation  precedes 
substitution,  since  there  can  be  no  replacement  until  there 
has  been  occupancy.  For  instance,  no  struggle  between 
new  and  old  can  occur  until  some  progress  has  been  made. 
Then  the  answers  already  given  to  questions  block  the 
way  to  better  solutions,  and  conflict  ensues.  Early  re- 
ligious thinking  issued  in  myths  rather  than  dogmas, 
and,  since  there  was  room  for  all  of  them,  they  did  not 
interfere.  Early  observations  on  natural  phenomena 
dispelled  darkness  rather  than  disproved  errors.  Not 
until  a  rank  growth  of  speculations  had  sprung  up  was  it 
necessary  to  conduct  a  vast  discussion  in  order  to  over- 
throw a  Ptolemaic  system,  a  sacred  cosmology,  or  a  theory 
of  the  special  creation  of  species.  "When  the  art  of  war 
first  arose,  every  new  weapon  or  drill  or  tactic  could  be 
added  to  those  already  in  existence,  whereas,  in  our  own 
day  it  is  seldom  that  a  new  engine  of  war  or  a  new  military 
regulation  does  not  have  to  battle  for  some  time  with  others 
which  its  introduction  has  rendered  useless.  In  the  be- 
ginnings of  industry,  in  its  pastoral  and  agricultural  forms, 
every  nev/ly  cultivated  plant  and  every  newly  domesti- 
cated animal  were  added  to  the  feeble  resources  of  field 


'See  Tarde,  "Laws  of  Imitations,"  173-184. 
330 


UNION  AND   ACCUMULATION  331 

and  barn,  of  garden  and  stable,  and  did  not,  like  to-day, 
replace  other  domestic  plants  and  animals  of  almost  equal 
worth.  At  that  time,  likewise,  every  new  astronomical 
or  physical  observation  which  lit  up  some  hitherto  obscure 
point  in  the  human  mind  took  an  undisputed  place  side  by 
side  with  anterior  observations  which  it  in  no  way  con- 
tradicted." ^ 

Nearly  every  segment  of  social  culture  has  a  side  that  Every  fabric 
admits  of  accumulation  by  the  union  of  the  new  with  the  has  twoTides 
old,  and  another  side  that  admits  only  of  the  replacement  —  oneex- 
of  the  old  by  the  new.     When  two  civilizational  spheres  —  ^^^^j.  ^^^. 
such  as  Occident  and  Orient  —  come  to  penetrate  each 
other,  each  can  borrow  much  from  the  other  without  ex- 
periencing disturbance  or  opposition  of  any  kind.     There 
comes  a  time,  however,  when  no  further  borrowing  can 
take  place  without  discarding  something  already  in  hand. 
At  this  point  begin  interference  and  conflict. 

In  language  the  vocabulary  goes  on  enlarging  indefi- 
nitely, while  the  grammar  soon  reaches  a  point  where 
further  growth  can  take  place  only  by  substitution. 

"  Religions  also,  like  languages,  have  two  aspects.  They  Rigid  and 
have  their  dictionary  of  narrative  and  legend,  their  starting-  P|^^'p  ^^^^^ 
point,  and  their  religious  grammar  of  dogma  and  ritual. 
The  former  is  composed  of  Biblical  or  mythological  tales, 
of  histories  of  gods  and  demigods,  of  heroes  and  saints,  and 
it  can  develop  without  stop;  but  the  latter  cannot  be 
extended  in  the  same  way.  After  all  the  main  conscience- 
tormenting  problems  have  been  solved  according  to  the 
peculiar  principle  of  the  given  religion,  a  moment  comes 
when  no  new  dogma  can  be  introduced  which  does  not 
partly  contradict  established  dogma;    similarly,  no  new 

*  Tarde,  "Laws  of  Imitations,"  174. 


332  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

rite,  inasmuch  as  it  is  an  expression  of  dogma,  can  be 
freely  introduced  when  all  the  dogmas  have  already  been 
expressed  in  ritual.  Now,  after  the  creed  and  ritual  of  a 
religion  have  been  defined,  its  martyrology,  hagiography, 
and  ecclesiastical  history  never  fail  to  grow  richer,  and 
this  even  more  rapidly  than  before.  Moreover,  the  saints 
and  martyrs  and  devotees  of  a  mature  religion  not  only 
do  not  contradict  one  another  in  the  conventionality  and 
orthodoxy  of  all  their  acts,  thoughts,  and  even  miracles, 
but  mutually  reflect  and  indorse  one  another.  ...  If 
the  religion  is  primarily  narrative,  it  is  highly  variable 
and  plastic;  if  it  is  primarily  dogmatic,  it  is  essentially 
unchangeable.  In  Graeco-Latin  paganism  there  is  al- 
most no  dogma,  and  since  ritual  has,  therefore,  almost 
no  dogmatic  significance,  its  symbolism  is  of  the  more 
distinctively  narrative  kind.  It  may  represent,  for  ex- 
ample, an  episode  in  the  life  of  Ceres  or  Bacchus.  Under- 
stood in  this  way  there  may  be  no  end  to  the  accumulation 
of  different  rites.  If  dogma  amounted  to  almost  nothing, 
narrative  was  almost  everything  in  ancient  polytheism. 
Therefore  it  had  incredible  facility  for  enrichment." 
Compare  the  plastic  religion  formed  thus  upon  a  body  of 
myths  with  a  monotheistic  religion  like  Islam  or  Catholi- 
cism, in  which  mutually  consistent  and  supporting  dogmas 
and  sacraments  and  rites  are  so  articulated  into  a  solid 
system  that  no  change  can  be  brought  about  save  in  the 
face  of  the  greatest  resistance. 
Rigid  and  Science  is  extensible  on  the  side  of  observations  and 

plastic  sides    measurements,  but  not  on  the  side  of  hypotheses,  theories, 

of  science 

and  generalizations.  "As  long  as  science  merely  enumer- 
ates and  describes  facts,  sense-given  data,  it  is  susceptible 
of  indefinite  extension.     And  science  begins  in  this  way 


UNION  AND   ACCUMULATION  333 

by  being  a  collection  of  non-related  as  well  as  non-con- 
tradictory phenomena.  But  as  soon  as  it  becomes  dog- 
matic and  law-making,  in  turn,  as  soon  as  it  conceives  of 
theories  that  are  able  to  give  to  facts  the  air  of  mutual 
confirmation  instead  of  merely  mutual  non-contradiction, 
as  soon,  indeed,  as  it  unwittingly  synthesizes  the  data  of 
sensation  under  intuitive  mental  forms  which  are  implicit 
general  propositions  called  time,  space,  matter,  and  force, 
then  science  becomes,  perhaps,  the  most  incapable  of 
extension  of  all  human  achievements.  Scientific  theories 
undoubtedly  become  more  complete,  but  this  happens 
through  mutual  substitution  and  through  periodically 
fresh  starts,  whereas  observations  and  experiments  go 
on  accumulating.  Certain  leading  hypotheses  that  re- 
appear from  one  age  to  another  —  atomism,  dynamism 
(modern  evolution),  monadology,  idealism  (Platonic  or 
Hegelian)  —  are  the  inflexible  frames  of  the  swelling  and 
overflowing  mass  of  facts.  Only,  among  these  master 
thoughts,  these  hypotheses  or  inventions  of  science,  there 
are  certain  ones  which  receive  increasing  confirmation 
from  one  another  and  from  the  continual  accumulation 
of  newly  discovered  facts  which,  in  consequence,  no  longer 
merely  restrict  themselves  to  not  contradicting  one  an- 
other, but  reciprocally  repeat  and  confirm  one  another,  as 
if  bearing  witness  together  to  the  same  law  or  to  the  same 
collective  proposition." 

Law  is  extensible  on  the  side  of  rulings,  decisions,  and  Rigid  and 
statutes  which  carry  it  into  special  fields  or  apply  it  to  new  Pj^^'^  ^ides 
classes  of  cases ;  but  not  in  the  reasoned  system  of  principles 
which  makes  up  a  jurisprudence.  A  doctrine  like  that  of 
ulira  vires,  or  caveat  emptor,  or  contributory  negligence, 
or  fellow-servant,  cannot  be  amended  in  the  least  without 
letting  loose  a  hurricane  of  protest. 


334 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


The  state 


Industry 


Art 


The  non- 
accumulable 
elements  are 
the  superior 
and  con- 
trolling 


Compare  also  the  extensibility  of  administrative  bureaus 
and  functions  with  the  resistance  to  change  offered  by 
organic  law  and  fundamental  political  ideas.  Again, 
the  instruments  and  products  of  industry  can  be  accumu- 
lated, but  the  scale  of  wants  is  modified  chiefly  by  substitu- 
tion. Consider,  for  instance,  by  what  hard  battles  have 
libraries  and  universities  come  to  challenge  the  attention 
of  society,  rather  than  cathedrals  like  those  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  Think  of  the  struggle  that  was  necessary  to  create 
the  want  that  has  called  into  being  the  splendid  gymna- 
siums and  athletic  fields  in  our  colleges  !  Likewise,  works 
of  art  multiply,  but  the  ideals  that  inspire  these  works 
cannot  be  altered  without  precipitating  a  conflict  of  new 
with  old. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  the  non-accumulable  social  products 
that  are  the  more  essential.  They  are  governing  beliefs, 
concepts,  needs,  aspirations,  which  are  to  the  accumulable 
products  what  form  is  to  matter.  The  genius  of  a  language 
is  in  its  grammar,  not  its  vocabulary ;  the  core  of  religion 
is  in  its  dogmas  or  ideals,  not  its  myths  and  observances ; 
the  kernel  of  science  is  its  laws  and  theories,  not  its  ob- 
servations. Law  means  a  system  of  principles,  not  a 
mass  of  rulings  or  statutes.  The  art  of  an  epoch  means  a 
group  of  harmonious  reigning  ideals,  not  the  accumulation 
of  poems  and  paintings.  Says  Tarde  :  "  Is  it  true  that  the 
sides  of  social  thought  and  conduct  that  cannot  be  in- 
definitely extended  (grammars,  dogmas  and  theories, 
principles  of  justice,  political  policy  and  strategy,  morals 
and  aesthetics)  are  less  worth  cultivating  than  the  side  that 
can  be  indefinitely  extended  (vocabularies,  mythologies, 
and  descriptive  sciences,  customs,  collections  of  laws, 
industries,  systems  of  civil  and  military  administration)  ? 


UNION   AND   ACCUMULATION  335 

"  On  the  contrary,  the  side  open  to  substitution,  that 
which  after  a  certain  point  cannot  be  extended,  is  always  the 
more  essential  side.  Grammar  is  the  whole  of  language. 
Theory  is  the  whole  of  science,  and  dogma  of  religion. 
Principles  constitute  justice ;  strategy,  war.  Govern- 
ment is  but  a  political  idea.  Morality  is  the  sum  of 
industry,  for  industry  amounts  to  neither  more  nor  less 
than  its  end.  The  ideal  is  surely  the  all  of  art.  What 
are  words  good  for  but  for  building  sentences,  or  facts 
but  for  making  theories  ?  What  are  laws  good  for  but  to 
unfold  or  consecrate  higher  principles  of  justice?  For 
what  use  are  the  arms,  the  tactics,  and  the  different  divi- 
sions of  an  army  but  to  form  part  of  the  strategical  plan  of 
the  general  in  command?  Of  what  use  are  the  multiple 
services,  functions,  and  administrative  departments  of  a 
state  but  to  aid  in  the  constitutional  schemes  of  the  states- 
man who  represents  the  victorious  political  party?  .  .  . 

"Only  it  is  much  easier  to  move  forward  in  the  direction  Advance  on 
of  possible  acquisitions  and  endowments  than  in  that  of  V^p^^*'^ 

^  ^  side  much 

necessary  substitutions  and  sacrifices.  It  is  much  easier  easier  than 
to  pile  up  neologism  upon  neologism  than  to  master  one's  °^g  ^  "^' 
own  tongue  and,  thereby,  gradually  improve  its  grammar ; 
to  bring  together  scientific  observations  and  experiments 
than  to  supply  science  with  theories  of  a  more  general  and 
demonstrated  order ;  to  multiply  miracles  and  pious  prac- 
tices than  to  substitute  rational  for  outworn  religious 
dogmas;  to  manufacture  laws  by  the  dozen  than  to  con- 
ceive of  a  new  principle  of  justice  fitted  to  conciliate  all 
interests." 

For  this  reason,  it  is  usually  only  the  pressure  of  great 
masses  of  new  acquisitions  that  precipitate  at  last  those 
conflicts  in  the  upper  ranges  of  thought  that  bring  about 


336 


SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 


More  and 
more,  con- 
flicts arc 
precipitated 
by  the  pres- 
sure of  ac- 
cumulated 
materials 


great  changes  in  the  tenor  of  a  civilization.  Muhitudes 
of  astronomical  observations  finally  make  the  geocentric 
theory  untenable  and  the  heliocentric  theory  alone  tenable. 
The  minute  study  of  sources  regarding  an  epoch  in  church 
history  undermines  at  last  the  illegitimate  ecclesiastical 
pretensions  based  on  the  forged  Donation  of  Constantine, 
or  the  spurious  Isidorean  Decretals.  The  piling  up  of 
innumerable  points  about  the  text  of  the  Pentateuch  im- 
peaches eventually  their  Mosaic  authorship  and  discloses 
the  actual  history  of  Israel.  An  immense  number  of 
observations  on  the  order  and  upbuilding  of  the  earth's 
strata  in  the  end  enables  geology  to  free  minds  from  the 
spell  of  Usher's  chronology.  The  ceaseless  accumula- 
tion of  observations  and  statistics  regarding  the  increase 
of  the  unfit  will  at  last  break  down  the  dogma  of  "  personal 
liberty"  in  its  application  to  the  propagation  of  their  kind 
by  epileptics  and  feeble-minded. 


SUMMARY 

As  culture  grows  and  becomes  articulated  the  new  is  more  and 
more  liable  to  interfere  with  the  estabUshed. 

Nevertheless  every  fabric  of  culture  is  plastic  in  some  respects 
and  rigid  in  other  respects. 

Religion  is  plastic  so  far  as  it  remains  myth  but  resistant  so  far 
as  it  has  become  dogma. 

Science  can  be  readily  extended  on  the  side  of  data,  but  not  on 
the  side  of  law,  generalization,  and  theory. 

It  is  easy  to  discriminate  or  extend  the  application  of  legal  princi- 
ples; but  it  is  hard  to  introduce  a  new  legal  principle. 

Growth  is  easier  on  the  plastic  than  on  the  resistant  side  of  a 
culture  fabric ;  but  in  every  case  the  latter  is  the  superior  and  con- 
trolling side. 


UNION   AND   ACCUMULATION  337 

EXERCISES 

1.  Why  is  it  that  only  the  higher  religions  resist  free  inquiry? 

2.  What  should  be  the  chief  basis  of  religious  fellowship  — 
agreement  in  belief  or  agreement  in  ideal  ?     Why  ? 

3.  Differentiate  the  plastic  and  the  rigid  sides  of  botany,  of  psy- 
chology, of  economics. 

4.  Is  it  better  to  assail  a  false  dogma  or  to  undermine  it  by  mar- 
shalling and  interpreting  the  adverse  facts? 

5.  Show  different  ways  of  proceeding  against  such  dogmas  as 
"  Art  for  art's  sake,"  "  Measures,  not  men,"  "  The  home  is  woman's 
sphere." 


z 


CHAPTER   XXI 

COMPROMISE 

Returning  now  to  the  conflict  mode  of  advance,  we 
note  that  often  it  is  necessary,  before  a  conflict  has  reached 
its  natural  termination,  for  a  group  to  take  collective  action 
or  to  assume  a  collective  attitude  on  the  matter.  These 
premature  decisions,  these  ad  interim  attitudes,  involve 
the  phenomena  of  compromise. 
Compromise  Only  in  Certain  fields  is  it  needful  thus  to  anticipate  the 
occurs  only     natural  issue  of  a  duel,  to  forestall,  as  it  were,  the  social 

in  matters  '  '  ' 

which  call  verdict.  Occasion  for  compromise  does  not  appear  in 
action  ^^  '^^  ^^^  Struggle  between  steam  and  sail,  fashion  and  rational 
dress,  homeopathy  and  allopathy,  romanticism  and  realism. 
In  such  cases  the  issue  is  decided  by  numberless  individual 
hesitations  and  decisions.  But  where  collective  action  of 
some  sort  is  imperative  —  whether  it  be  the  revision  of  its 
polity  or  creed  by  a  church,  the  drawing  up  of  its  demands 
by  a  labor  organization,  the  formulating  of  an  opinion 
by  a  scientific  body,  or  the  framing  of  a  policy  by  govern- 
ment —  discussion  will  be  fierce  and  compromise  will  be 
frequent,  owing  to  the  fact  that  the  disapproving  minority 
is  bound  by  the  group  action  as  well  as  the  approving 
majority.  It  is  the  anxiety  of  elements  or  sections  in  the 
commonwealth  lest  they  be  overridden  by  an  undesired 
collective  policy,  that  lends  such  heat  and  virulence  to 
political  discussion.  It  is  their  energy  of  remonstrance  and 
reprisal  in  such  event  that  makes  compromise  a  charac- 

338 


COMPROMISE  339 

teristic  form  of  political  action.  Thus,  the  equal  suffrage 
principle  is  compromised  by  giving  the  ballot  to  women  in 
municipal  elections,  or  to  tax-paying  women  only.  The 
"saloon"  or  "no-saloon"  issue  is,  after  all,  no  impasse 
while  there  are  such  halfway  houses  as  Sunday  closing, 
early  closing,  and  state  dispensary.  If  debate  and  com- 
promise are  not  so  characteristic  of  non-political  groups, 
it  is  because  in  these  the  aggrieved  minority  may  withdraw 
or  secede  when  the  yoke  of  the  majority  is  too  heavy 
on  them ;  whereas  in  poHtical  groups  the  minority  has  no 
such  recourse. 

Sometimes  compromise  is  the  only  solution  of  an  inde-  Compromise 
terminate  discussion,  i.e.,  a  social  deadlock.     In  a  social  f"^^*^'"^^ 

'  '  breaks  a 

club,  a  fraternal  order,  a  trade  union,  a  church,  or  a  nation,  social  dead- 
two  parties  may  appear,  either  of  which  will  secede  rather  ^°^ 
than  allow  the  other  party  to  carry  its  point.  The  com- 
promiser who  in  such  a  case  finds  some  tenable  middle 
ground  and  thereby  averts  the  break-up  of  the  group  is 
justly  hailed  as  "saviour  of  society,"  "great  pacificator," 
"constructive  statesman,"  etc. 

Oftener,  however,  the  compromise  is  not  a  basis  of  final  Oftener, 
settlement,  but  merely  a  provisional  arrangement  pend-  however,  it 

,  "^  ^  or-  indicates  an 

mg  the  completion  of  conflict  and  the  emergence  of  a  real  unfinished 
and  definitive  social  decision.  It  is  a  means  of  securing  social  con- 
instalments  of  truth,  justice,  or  reform,  when  the  full 
measure  is  not  yet  to  be  had.  It  is  easy  to  justify  it  on 
the  principle  that  "  half  a  loaf  is  better  than  none."  Never- 
theless, compromises  that  yield  no  logical  resting-place  are 
satisfactory  to  neither  side,  and  compromisers  of  this  sort 
suffer  much  abuse.  There  is,  in  fact,  a  necessary  and 
eternal  feud  between  the  agitator,  reformer,  or  man  of 
principle,  who   is  the   instigator  of   changes  of  opinion 


340 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


Inevitable 
feud  be- 
tween com- 
promiser and 
reformer 


English 
fondness  for 
compromise 

The  Tolera- 
tion Act 


in  the  group,  and  the  judge,  chairman,  moderator,  party 
leader,  or  statesman,  who  is  obliged  to  formulate  a  policy 
for  immediate  action.  The  latter,  in  undertaking  to 
register  the  social  will  rather  than  the  will  of  a  party,  is 
bound  to  reckon  with  many  elements,  and  must  often 
concede  much  in  order  to  turn  a  minority  into  a  majority, 
or  a  precarious  majority  into  a  safe  majority.  But  the  man 
of  principle,  who  alone  has  led  the  fight  up  to  this  point, 
and  who  alone  can  carry  it  on  to  final  victory,  cannot  but 
detest  the  "practical"  statesman  who  mutilates  or  emas- 
culates his  principle  or  ideal  in  carrying  it  out,  cannot  but 
regard  him  as  a  mere  trimmer,  weather-cock,  place- 
keeper,  policy  man.  On  the  other  hand,  the  promoter  of 
a  successful  compromise  does  not  present  it  bluntly  as 
"an  instalment  on  account,"  but  as  inherently  "fair"  and 
"reasonable."  In  defending  his  compromise  against  all 
comers  he  is  bound  to  develop  faith  in  it.  In  the  end 
he  will  stigmatize  the  man  of  principle  who  criticises  it  as 
"extremist,"  "idealogist,"  "fanatic."  Yet  the  latter  is 
the  spur  or  gadfly  that  keeps  the  social  mind  in  movement 
and  will  eventually  enable  the  statesman  completely  to 
realize  his  principle.  This  cross-firing  between  these  two 
types  of  fighter  in  the  political  division  of  the  great  army 
of  progress  is  one  of  those  tragic  situations  that  the  wit 
of  man  cannot  relieve. 

Societies  differ  in  aptitude  for  compromise.  English- 
men reform  on  the  instalment  plan  and  are  extremely 
complacent  about  it.     Says  Macaulay :  ^  — 

"  Of  all  the  Acts  that  have  ever  been  passed  by  Parliament, 
the  Toleration  Act  is  perhaps  that  which  most  strikingly 
illustrates  the  peculiar  vices  and  the  peculiar  excellences 
1  "History  of  England,"  III,  66-69. 


COMPROMISE  341 

of  English  legislation.  .  .  .  The  perfect  lawgiver  is  a 
just  temper  between  the  mere  man  of  theory,  who  can  see 
nothing  but  general  principles,  and  the  mere  man  of  busi- 
ness, who  can  see  nothing  but  particular  circumstances. 
Of  lawgivers  in  whom  the  speculative  element  has  pre- 
vailed to  the  exclusion  of  the  practical,  the  world  has 
during  the  last  eighty  years  been  singularly  fruitful.  To 
their  wisdom  Europe  and  America  have  owed  scores  of 
abortive  constitutions,  scores  of  constitutions  which  have 
lived  just  long  enough  to  make  a  miserable  noise  and  have 
then  gone  off  in  convulsions.  But  in  the  English  legisla- 
ture the  practical  element  has  always  predominated,  and 
not  seldom  unduly  predominated,  over  the  speculative. 
To  think  nothing  of  symmetry  and  much  of  convenience ; 
never  to  remove  an  anomaly  merely  because  it  is  an 
anomaly;  never  to  innovate,  except  when  some  grievance 
is  felt ;  never  to  innovate  except  so  far  as  to  get  rid  of  the 
grievance;  never  to  lay  down  any  proposition  of  wider 
extent  than  the  particular  case  for  which  it  is  necessary  to 
provide;  these  are  the  rules  which  have,  from  the  age  of 
John  to  the  age  of  Victoria,  generally  guided  the  delib- 
erations of  our  two  hundred  and  fifty  Parliaments.  Our 
national  distaste  for  whatever  is  abstract  in  political  science 
amounts  undoubtedly  to  a  fault.  Yet  it  is,  perhaps,  a 
fault  on  the  right  side.  That  we  have  been  far  too  slow  to 
improve  our  laws  must  be  admitted.  But,  though  in 
other  countries  there  may  occasionally  have  been  more 
rapid  progress,  it  would  not  be  easy  to  name  any 
other  country  in  which  there  has  been  so  little  retro- 
gression, 

"  The  Toleration  Act  approaches  very  near  to  the  ideal  of 
a  great  English  law.     To  a  jurist,  versed  in  the  theory  of 


342  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

legislation,  but  not  intimately  acquainted  with  the  temper 
of  the  sects  and  parties  into  which  the  nation  was  divided 
at  the  time  of  the  Revolution,  that  Act  would  seem  to  be 
a  mere  chaos  of  absurdities  and  contradictions.  It  will 
not  bear  to  be  tried  by  sound  general  principles.  Nay,  it 
will  not  bear  to  be  tried  by  any  principles,  sound  or  un- 
sound. The  sound  principle  undoubtedly  is,  that  mere 
theological  error  ought  not  to  be  punished  by  the  civil 
magistrate.  This  principle  the  Toleration  Act  not  only 
does  not  recognize,  but  positively  disclaims.  Not  a  single 
one  of  the  cruel  laws  enacted  against  non-conformists  by 
the  Tudors  or  the  Stuarts  is  repealed.  Persecution  con- 
tinues to  be  the  general  rule.  Toleration  is  the  exception. 
Nor  is  this  all.  The  freedom  which  is  given  to  conscience 
is  given  in  the  most  capricious  manner.  A  Quaker,  by 
making  a  declaration  of  faith  in  general  terms,  obtains  the 
full  benefit  of  the  Act  without  signing  one  of  the  Thirty- 
nine  Articles.  An  Independent  minister,  who  is  per- 
fectly willing  to  make  the  declaration  required  from  the 
Quaker,  but  who  has  doubts  about  six  or  seven  of  the 
Articles,  remains  still  subject  to  the  penal  laws.  .  .  .  This 
law,  abounding  with  contradictions  which  every  smatterer 
in  political  philosophy  can  detect,  did  what  a  law  framed 
by  the  utmost  skill  of  the  greatest  masters  of  political 
philosophy  might  have  failed  to  do.  That  the  provisions 
which  have  been  recapitulated  are  cumbrous,  puerile,  in- 
consistent with  each  other,  inconsistent  with  the  true 
theory  of  religious  liberty,  must  be  acknowledged.  All 
that  can  be  said  in  their  defence  is  this :  that  they  removed 
a  vast  mass  of  evil  without  shocking  the  vast  mass  of 
prejudice ;  that  they  put  an  end,  at  once  and  forever,  with- 
out one  division  in  either  House  of  Parliament,  without 


COMPROMISE 


343 


one  riot  in  the  streets,  with  scarcely  one  audible  murmur 
even  from  the  classes  most  deeply  tainted  with  bigotry, 
to  a  persecution  which  had  raged  during  four  genera- 
tions, which  had  broken  innumerable  hearts,  which  had 
made  innumerable  firesides  desolate,  which  had  filled  the 
prisons  with  men  of  whom  the  world  was  not  worthy, 
which  had  driven  thousands  of  those  honest,  diligent, 
and  God-fearing  yeomen  and  artisans,  who  are  the  true 
strength  of  the  nation,  to  seek  a  refuge  beyond  the  ocean 
among  the  wigwams  of  red  Indians  and  the  lairs  of 
panthers." 

A  juster  view  is  presented  by  Professor  Dicey,*  who,  after 
pointing  out  the  prevalence  of  compromise  in  ecclesiastical 
legislation  in  England  during  the  nineteenth  century,  goes 
on  to  discuss  the  advantages  and  disadvantages  of  the 
system  of  compromise :  — 

"  Compromise  involving  great  deference  to  clerical  sen-  Advantages 
timent  has  averted  the  intense  bitterness  which,  in  foreign 
countries,  and  notably  in  France,  has  accompanied  eccle- 
siastical legislation.  The  position  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land has  throughout  the  nineteenth  century  been  gradually 
shifted  rather  than  violently  altered.  The  grievances  which 
in  1828  excited  the  hostility  of  Non-conformists  have  been 
immensely  diminished,  yet  the  sentiment  even  of  the 
clergy  has  not  been  embittered  by  a  revolution  every  step 
of  which  they  and  zealous  churchmen  have  opposed ;  and 
whilst,  in  some  respects,  the  wealth,  the  influence,  and  the 
popularity  of  the  church  have  been  increased,  the  pro- 
found discord  which  arises  from  the  identification  of  politi- 
cal with  theological  or  anti-theological  differences,  and 
amounts  in  some  countries  to  a  condition  of  moral  civil 

*  "Law  and  Public  Opinion  in  England,"  356-358. 


of  com- 
promise 


344 


SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 


war,  has  been  all  but  entirely  averted.     These  are   the 

virtues  of  compromise. 

Disadvan-  "  In  the  field,  however,  of  ecclesiastical  legislation  the 

tagesofcom-  yiccs  of  Compromise  are  as  marked  as  its  merits.     Con- 
promise  ^ 

troversies,  which  are  deprived  of  some  of  their  heat,  are 

allowed  to  smoulder  on  for  generations,  and  are  never 
extinguished.  Thus  national  education  has  been  for  more 
than  fifty  years  the  field  of  battle  between  Church  and  Dis- 
sent, each  settlement  has  been  the  basis  of  a  new  dispute, 
and  even  now  controversy  is  not  closed,  simply  because 
the  law  has  never  established  any  definite  principle.  One 
change  in  the  marriage  law  after  another  has  failed  to 
rest  the  whole  matter  on  any  satisfactory  foundation. 
Our  law  of  divorce  enables  a  clergyman  of  the  Church  of 
England  to  cast  a  slur  upon  a  marriage  fully  sanctioned  by 
the  law  of  the  state.  The  piecemeal  legislation  engen- 
dered by  the  desire  for  compromise,  and  the  spirit  which 
this  piecemeal  legislation  produces,  are  no  small  evils. 
'The  time  to  do  justice,'  it  has  been  well  said,  'is  now.' 
To  do  justice  bit  by  bit  is  in  reality  nothing  else  than  to 
tolerate  injustice  for  years." 
French  The  French,  more  logical  and  consistent  in  their  political 

penchant  ioT    thinking  than  the  English,  abhor  compromises  that  flout 

symmetry  '-'  o         '  r 

and  system,  evcry  principle  save  expediency,  and  are  apt  to  insist  on 
What  It  cosu  applying  a  remedy  in  its  entirety,  if  they  are  able  to  apply 
it  at  all.  This  impatience  with  halfway  measures  pro- 
duces symmetry  in  laws  and  institutions,  but  excites  the 
bitterness  of  large  unpersuaded  minorities,  necessitates 
resort  to  the  mailed  fist  as  a  means  of  procuring  obedi- 
ence to  law,  and  threatens  a  progressive  government 
with  reaction  or  revolt. 


COMPROMISE  345 

SUMMARY 

If  common  action  becomes  necessary  in  matters  on  which  society 
has  not  yet  made  up  its  mind,  a  compromise  will  be  struck. 

Compromise  occurs  oftener  in  politics  than  anywhere  else  because 
in  political  society  cooperation  is  compulsory. 

The  agitator  and  the  compromiser  are  hardly  ever  the  same  man 
because  the  one  is  spokesman  of  a  single  party,  the  other  is  spokes- 
man of  all  parties. 

Agitator  and  compromiser  are  both  servants  of  progress,  yet  each 
hates  the  other. 

Compromise  lessens  the  rancor  of  political  conflicts,  but  it  may 
postpone  their  settlement. 

Willingness  to  compromise  ought  to  be  joined  to  a  stubborn  loy- 
alty to  principle. 

EXERCISES 

1.  Show  that  compromise  in  the  sense  of  dissembling  one's  con- 
victions in  deference  to  conventional  views  is  altogether  different 
from  compromise  as  give-and-take  in  matters  wherein  common 
action  is  necessary. 

2.  Show  that  as  classes  become  distinct  and  self-conscious  dis- 
cussion fails  to  bring  agreement,  and  compromise  from  an  ad 
interim  arrangement  becomes  the  established  method  of  government. 

3.  Compare  the  resort  to  compromise  under  class  rule  with  that 
under  popular  rule. 

4.  Why  is  law  enforcement  more  vital  in  a  government  of  com- 
promise than  in  a  government  by  public  opinion?  [See  Ross,  "Sin 
and  Society,"  136-145.] 

5.  Does  frequency  of  compromise  prevent  a  government  from 
realizing  a  particular  type  or  conforming  to  a  set  of  political 
principles  ? 


CHAPTER  XXII 


PUBLIC  OPINION 


Social  irreso- 
lution is  not 
the  same  as 
individual 
irresolution 


A  DISCUSSION  that  attracts  general  attention  finds  its 
natural  issue  in  a  state  of  public  (or  social)  opinion.^  The 
formation  of  this  may  best  be  observed  during  a  discussion 
that  must  close  at  a  certain  date,  i.e.,  a  campaign.  A 
campaign  is  a  social  deliberation.  This  does  not  neces- 
sarily mean  general  individual  irresolution.  If  nobody 
had  made  up  his  mind,  there  could  be  no  conflict  whatever 
in  the  social  mind.     Says  Tarde :  ^  — 

"Let  us  suppose,  although  it  is  an  hypothesis  that  could 
never  be  realized,  that  all  the  members  of  the  nation  were 
simultaneously  and  indefinitely  in  a  state  of  indecision. 
Then  war  would  be  at  an  end,  for  an  ultimatum  or  a 
declaration  of  war  presupposes  the  making  of  individual 
decisions  by  cabinet  officers.  For  war  to  exist,  the  clear- 
est type  of  the  logical  duel  in  society,  peace  must  first 
have  been  established  in  the  minds  of  the  ministers  or 
rulers  who  before  that  hesitated  to  formulate  the  thesis 
and  antithesis  embodied  in  the  two  opposing  armies.  For 
the  same  reason  there  would  be  no  more  election  contests. 


^  The  reader  should  distinguish  preponderant  opinion  from  public 
opinion.  There  is  a  preponderant  opinion  as  to  coeducation,  or  the 
legitimacy  of  the  tontine  life  insurance  policy,  or  the  moral  effects  of 
religious  revivals,  but  not  a  public  opinion.  The  latter  implies  the 
direction  of  social  attention  usually,  though  not  necessarily,  in  view  of 
some  collective  decision  or  action. 

^"Laws  of  Imitations,"  165. 

346 


PUBLIC   OPINION  347 

There  would  be  an  end  to  religious  quarrels  and  to  sci- 
entific schisms  and  disputes,  because  this  division  of  so- 
ciety into  separate  churches  or  theories  presupposes  that 
some  single  doctrine  has  finally  prevailed  in  the  pre- 
viously divided  thought  or  conscience  of  each  of  their  re- 
spective followers.  Parliamentary  discussions  would  cease. 
There  would  be  an  end  to  litigation.  .  .  .  There  would 
be  an  end  to  the  struggles  and  encroachments  of  different 
kinds  of  law,  such  as  those  between  the  customary  law  and 
the  Roman  law  of  mediaeval  France,  for  such  national  per- 
plexity means  that  individuals  have  chosen  one  or  the 
other  of  the  two  bodies  of  law." 

All  these  instances  of  social  struggle  imply  that  over  a  part  A  campaign 
of  society  irresolution  has  ceased.     The  effort  of  each  party  ^etw^een^^  ^ 
is  to  destroy  the  irresolution  still  remaining,  or  to  create  groups  of 
doubt  in  the  minds  of  those  who  have  gone  with  the  other  ^gj^'^'^^ 
side.     In  a  campaign  the  public  is  like  a  more  or  less  inert 
substance  placed  between  two  chambers  containing  dif- 
ferent active  acids.     The  acid  that  eats  into  and  assimilates 
this  substance  the  more  rapidly  is  the  propaganda  of  the 
winning  party.     Sometimes  there  is  a  simple  acid  acting 
on    a    homogeneous    substance  —  the    communion    cup 
agitation  in  a  certain  church,  or  the  policy  of  withdrawal 
from  the  state  militia  mooted  in  a  labor  organization.     Usu- 
ally, however,  the  substance  is  heterogeneous,  and  each 
acid  has  a  number  of  ingredients,  —  arguments,  appeals, 
proposals,  planks,  —  each  of  which   is  presumed   to  be 
effective  with  some  section  of  the  public.     The  acid  must 
be  complex  when,  as  in  a  political  campaign,  the  entire 
public  is  being  acted  upon. 

The  affinities  individuals  develop  are  by  no  means  de-  Primary 
termined  simply  by  the  rational  balancing  of  opposing  con-  ■"'P'^^sion 


348  SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

siderations.  There  is  first  the  factor  of  prepossession  and 
prejudice.  Says  Bryce :  ^  "Every  one  is,  of  course,  predis- 
posed to  see  things  in  some  one  particular  light  by  his  pre- 
vious education,  habits  of  mind,  accepted  dogmas,  religious 
or  social  affinities,  notions  of  his  own  personal  interest.  No 
event,  no  speech  or  article  ever  falls  upon  a  perfectly  virgin 
soil ;  the  reader  or  listener  is  always  more  or  less  biassed  al- 
ready. When  some  important  event  happens,  which  calls 
for  the  formation  of  a  view,  these  preexisting  habits,  dog- 
mas, affinities,  help  to  determine  the  impression  which 
each  man  experiences,  and  so  are  factors  in  the  view  he 
forms." 
The  hie-  This  Original  impression  is  soon  overlaid  by  a  variety 

authorities  ^^  influences  of  social  origin.  Nearly  every  man  looks 
for  guidance  to  certain  quarters,  bows  to  the  example 
of  trusted  leaders,  of  persons  of  influence  or  authority. 
Every  editor,  politician,  banker,  capitalist,  railroad  presi- 
dent, employer,  clergyman,  or  judge  has  a  following  with 
whom  his  opinion  has  weight.  He,  in  turn,  is  likely  to 
have  his  authorities.  The  anatomy  of  collective  opinion 
shows  it  to  be  organized  from  centres  and  subcentres, 
forming  a  kind  of  intellectual  feudal  system.  The  aver- 
age man  responds  to  several  such  centres  of  influence, 
and  when  they  are  in  accord  on  a  particular  question  he  is 
almost  sure  to  acquiesce.  But  when  his  authorities  dis- 
agree, there  results  either  confusion  or  else  independence 
of  judgment. 

We  might  compare  the  individual  to  a  cell  in  the  social 

brain  knit  to  other  cells  by  afferent  and  efferent  filaments  of 

influence.     When  he  influences  more  people  than  have 

the  power  to  influence  him,  the  efferent   filaments  pre- 

^  "The  American  Commonwealth,"  II,  ch.  LXXVI. 


PUBLIC   OPINION  349 

dominate ;  but  when  he  is  chiefly  a  recipient  of  influences, 
the  afferent  predominate. 

Why,  in  the  course  of  forming  a  public  opinion,  the  Whyinde- 
primary  impression,  or  the  element  of  pure  personal  con-  ?^^  ^"* 
viction  arising  out  of  individual  thinking,  nearly  disap-  is  often 
pears  in  the  process  is  brought  out  by  Mark  Twain:* —  impossi  e 

"  There  are  seventy-five  million  men  and  women  among 
us  who  do  not  know  how  to  cut  out  and  make  a  dress 
suit,  and  they  would  not  think  of  trying ;  yet  they  all  think 
they  can  competently  think  out  a  political  or  religious 
scheme  without  any  apprenticeship  to  the  business,  and 
many  of  them  believe  they  have  actually  worked  that 
miracle.  But,  indeed,  the  truth  is,  almost  all  the  men  and 
women  of  our  nation  or  of  any  other  get  their  religion  and 
their  politics  where  they  get  their  astronomy  —  entirely 
at  second  hand.  Being  untrained,  they  are  no  more  able 
to  intelligently  examine  a  dogma  or  a  policy  than  they  are 
to  calculate  an  eclipse. 

"  Men  are  usually  competent  thinkers  along  the  lines  of  Necessity  of 
their  specialized  training  only.  Within  these  limits  alone  t^g^expert 
are  their  opinions  and  judgments  valuable;  outside  of 
these  limits  they  grope  and  are  lost  —  usually  without 
knowing  it.  In  a  church  assemblage  of  five  hundred  per- 
sons, there  will  be  a  man  or  two  whose  trained  mind  can 
seize  upon  each  detail  of  a  great  manufacturing  scheme 
and  recognize  its  value  or  its  lack  of  value  promptly; 
and  can  pass  the  details  in  intelligent  review,  section  by 
section,  and  finally  as  a  whole,  and  then  deliver  a  verdict 
upon  the  scheme  which  cannot  be  flippantly  set  aside  nor 
easily  answered.  And  there  will  be  one  or  two  other  men 
there  who  can  do  the  same  thing  with  a  great  and  com- 
^  North  American  Review,  176,  pp.  174-175. 


3SO 


SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 


Balloting  a 
mode  of 
registering 
public 
opinion 


plicated  educational  project;  and  one  or  two  others  who 
can  do  the  like  with  a  large  scheme  for  applying  electricity 
in  a  new  and  unheard-of  way ;  and  one  or  two  others  who 
can  do  it  with  a  showy  scheme  for  revolutionizing  the 
scientific  world's  accepted  notions  regarding  geology. 
And  so  on,  and  so  on.  But  the  manufacturing  experts 
will  not  be  competent  to  examine  the  educational  scheme 
intelligently,  and  their  opinion  about  it  would  not  be 
valuable;  neither  of  these  two  groups  will  be  able  to 
understand  and  pass  upon  the  electrical  scheme;  none  of 
these  three  batches  of  experts  will  be  able  to  understand 
and  pass  upon  the  geological  revolution;  and  probably 
not  one  man  in  the  entire  lot  would  be  competent  to  ex- 
amine, capably,  the  intricacies  of  a  political  or  religious 
scheme,  new  or  old,  and  deliver  a  judgment  upon  it  which 
any  one  need  regard  as  precious.  .  .  .  Not  ten  among 
the  five  hundred  —  let  their  minds  be  ever  so  good  and 
bright  —  will  be  competent,  by  grace  of  the  requisite 
specialized  mental  training,  to  take  hold  of  a  complex 
abstraction  of  any  kind  and  make  head  or  tail  of  it. 

"  The  whole  five  hundred  are  thinkers,  and  they  are  all 
capable  thinkers  —  but  only  within  the  narrow  limits  of 
their  specialized  trainings.  Four  hundred  and  ninety  of 
them  cannot  competently  examine  either  a  religious  plan 
or  a  political  one.  A  scattering  few  of  them  do  examine 
both  —  that  is,  they  think  they  do.  With  the  results  as 
precious  as  when  I  examine  the  nebular  theory  and  ex- 
plain it  to  myself." 

The  disposition  of  individual  minds  to  fall  gradually 
into  a  kind  of  spiritual  organization,  in  which  one  may 
balance  ten  thousand,  explains  the  importance  of  the 
time  element  in  the  making  of  a  social  decision.    The 


PUBLIC   OPINION  351 

polling  of  people  on  a  question  when  first  it  comes  up 
brings  to  light  much  prejudice,  passion,  and  stupidity. 
The  polling  of  the  same  persons  after  there  has  been 
time  for  free  discussion  and  the  maturing  of  a  public 
opinion,  reveals  an  intelligence  and  foresight  far  above 
that  of  the  average  man.  It  is,  therefore,  a  slander  to 
declare  that  manhood  suffrage  equalizes  Socrates  and 
Sambo.  At  its  best  estate  a  popular  election  merely 
records  the  outcome  of  a  vast  social  deliberation  in  which 
the  philosopher  has  a  million  times  the  influence  of  the 
field  hand.  This  collective  rumination  corrects  the  ballot- 
box  falsehood  that  one  man  is  as  good  as  another,  and 
brings  it  to  pass  that  the  decisions  of  a  political  democracy 
may  be  quite  as  intelligent  as  those  of  an  aristocratic 
society,  and  at  the  same  time  free  from  the  odious  class 
selfishness  of  the  latter. 

Although  public  opinion  at  its  final  stage  always  ex-  class  coef- 
hibits  the  hierarchical  structure,  this  hierarchy  of  influence  ^"^"^^  °\ 

.  .  .  .  value  in  the 

need  not  be  identical  with  the  political  or  social  hierarchy,  formation 
else  there  could  be  no  popular  movements,  no  peasant  re-  °^  public 

^    '^  '  r  opinion 

volts,  no  branching  off  of  humble  sects  (Dunkers,  Douk- 
hobors),  no  confrontation  of  classes  and  masses.  A 
democratic  society  is  characterized  by  the  depreciation  of 
mere  social  position  and  the  exaltation  of  the  wisdom  and 
competency  of  the  average  man.  Ultra-democracy  pre- 
sumes the  independency  of  each  citizen's  opinions,  just 
as  ultra-Protestantism  assumes  that  every  good  Chris- 
tian will  from  his  prayerful  study  of  the  Scriptures  have 
worked  out  for  himself  a  system  of  theology.  The  en- 
couragement of  the  common  man  in  his  own  conceit 
profoundly  alters  the  relation  of  leaders  and  led.  Con- 
trast the  "habitual  deference"   towards  certain  classes, 


352 


SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 


Indexes  of 

public 
opinion 


which  in  England  has  prevented  universal  suffrage  from 
working  out  its  normal  effects,  with  the  powerlessness 
of  any  one  class  continuously  to  dominate  Australasian 
or  American  opinion.  Nevertheless,  during  the  decade 
1895-1905,  a  widespread  infatuation  with  the  com- 
mercial-financial magnates,  the  so-called  "captains  of 
industry,"  came  near  to  giving  this  class  the  control  of 
American  public  opinion. 

An  organ  of  public  opinion  is  at  once  an  expression  of 
existing  views  and  a  factor  in  further  moulding  the  com- 
mon judgment.  Men  like  to  be  on  the  prevailing  side 
—  to  go  with  the  view  that  seems  likely  to  win.  Hence, 
the  utterance  of  an  organ  of  public  opinion  is  at  once  a 
disclosure  of  an  existing  force  and  a  further  force  in 
influencing  others.  This  fact  multiplies  the  organs  of 
expression  but  confuses  their  utterances,  because  every 
voice  seeks  to  represent  itself  as  that  of  the  greater  or  at 
least  of  a  growing  number.  Newspapers  are  conven- 
tionally organs  of  public  opinion,  but  too  many  become 
advocates  and  thus  cease  to  be  indexes  or  mirrors.  On 
political  questions  we  can  follow  the  drift  of  opinion  in 
independent  or  semi-independent  journals  —  the  mug- 
wump newspapers,  the  non-political  press,  the  religious 
or  literary  sheets.  In  general,  an  advocate  is  worthless 
as  an  index  of  public  opinion  on  its  own  hobby,  but  on 
related  topics  it  may  be  valuable.  For  example,  the 
utterances  of  the  great  anti-saloon  organ  may  be  signifi- 
cant and  representative  on  everything  save  "prohibition." 

Published  letters,  interviews,  pulpit  and  platform 
utterances,  the  resolutions  of  mass-meetings,  the  views  of 
bodies  and  associations,  —  all  these  are  straws  indicating 
the  set  of  the  current  of  public  opinion.     But,  again,  the 


dition 


PUBLIC   OPINION  353 

attitude  of  associations  is  not  significant  on  questions  con- 
nected with  their  main  purpose.  The  attitude  of  the 
women  of  the  Woman's  Christian  Temperance  Union  on 
temperance,  or  of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  on 
an  eight-hours  bill  has  no  revelatory  significance.  The 
sphere  of  competency  of  such  associations  is  a  group  of 
questions  whereon  they  are  not  committed,  but  which 
they  are  fit  to  judge.  A  resolution  of  a  temperance  organi- 
zation on  child  labor,  of  a  bankers'  association  on  the 
Torrens  system,  of  a  scientific  society  on  rain-making 
experiments,  is  at  once  index  and  shaper  of  public  opinion. 

After  an  overwhelming  public  opinion  has  been  reached  The  merging 
in  consequence  of  adequate  discussion,  the  subject  is  dis-  "jn^on^nto 
missed  from  the  attention  of  society  and  the  conclusion,  social  tra- 
entering  the   current  of  tradition,   passes  quietly  down 
from  generation  to  generation  along  with  other  trans- 
mitted beliefs  and   standards.     The   settled  aversion  of 
our  own  society  to  gladiatorial  combats,  polygamy,  chattel 
slavery,  the  judicial    use  of   torture,  the  press  gang,  the 
use  of  flogging  in  the  navy,  or  the  official  tampering  with 
private  correspondence  can  be  traced  in  every  case  to  a 
more  or  less  general  discussion,  that  issued  in  a  principle 
or  maxim  or  canon  that,  since  then,  has  been  accepted 
without  question. 

SUMMARY 

The  formation  of  a  public  opinion  is  best  observed  during  a  dis- 
cussion that  must  close  at  a  certain  date. 

The  starting  point  of  the  process  is  the  primary  impression  made 
on  individual  minds. 

The  process  itself  consists  in  the  deepening,  modifying  or  effacing 
of  this  primary  impression  by  arguments,  appeals,  the  force  of  num- 
bers, the  influence  of  authorities,  the  opinion  of  specialists,  and  the 
example  of  social  superiors. 

2A 


354  SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

An  election  is  a  means  of  registering  the  predominant  types  of 
opinion.  In  the  fashioning  of  such  opinion  some  individuals  have 
had  ten  thousand  times  the  influence  of  others. 

Universal  suffrage  therefore  by  no  means  implies  the  rule  of  the 
average  man. 

After  a  discussion  is  completed  the  resulting  public  opinion,  em- 
bodied in  structure,  law,  morals,  or  policy,  is  passed  down  through 
the  generations  and  social  attention  turns  to  other  matters. 

EXERCISES 

1.  Why  is  it  that  the  single-idea  party  becomes  a  many -idea  party 
when  it  approaches  success? 

2.  Why  should  this  be  untrue  in  the  case  of  an  association  formed 
for  a  special  and  limited  purpose  and  not  for  general  purposes? 

3.  Show  how  unlike  is  the  rule  of  public  opinion  to  the  rule  of 
the  mob. 

4.  What  are  the  good  and  bad  points  in  the  guidance  of  public 
opinion  by  the  "  better  classes  "  ? 

5.  What  are  the  good  and  bad  points  in  its  guidance  by  the 
moral  and  intellectual  dlite? 

6.  What  are  the  good  and  bad  points  in  its  guidance  by  the 
experts? 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

DISEQUILIBRATION 

There  is,  as  we  have  seen,  a  tendency  for  the  contra-  Why  an 
dictions  impHcit  in  the  contents  of  the  social  mind  to  ^^^'^[  "^™ 
find  their  way  to  the  surface.     Conflicts  break  out,  rage,  reached 
and  terminate  by  the  victorious  belief  or  practice  enter- 
ing the  stream  of  tradition  and  passing  down  to  later 
generations.     Why,  then,   is  there  not  finally  a  removal 
of  all  incongruities,  a  settlement  of  all  conflicts?     Why 
should  not  a  culture  finally  reach  a  self-consistency  such 
that  its  elements  are  in  logical  accord;    such  that  the 
various  interests  in  human  life  and   in   society  receive 
from  it  due  recognition  and  fall  therefore  into  a  kind  of 
harmony?    This,  in  fact,  is  just  what  tends  to  occur. 
An  equilibrium  is  perpetually  being  established,  but  it  is 
liable  to  be  ruptured :  — 

(i)    By    fresh    contacts    with    other    cultures,  effected  Theinflu- 
through  conquest,  commerce,  travel,  or  improved  com-  ^'^^^_°^^ 
munication.     Thus,   after   the   Romans  had   achieved   a  culture 
crude  and  rather  rustic  culture,  it  was  greatly  transformed 
by  heavy  borrowings  from  the  superior  culture  of  Greece. 
After  these  cultures  had  come  to  terms  and  a  rough  syn- 
thesis had  been  effected,  the  mind  of  the  classic  world 
was  thrown  into  confusion  by  the  spread  of  Christianity, 
an  exotic  that  had  bloomed  on  the  Hebrew  stalk.     After 
this  great  complex  of  factors  had  been  wrought  by  theo- 
logians into  an  outwardly  harmonious  system,  a  leaven 

3SS 


356  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

was  introduced  from  Arabic  civilization  through  contact 
with  the  Moors,  which  resulted  in  the  burst  of  Scholas- 
ticism in  the  thirteenth  century.  Two  centuries  later  the 
Revival  of  Learning  brought  on  an  immense  flooding  and 
fertilizing  of  the  European  intellect  with  the  Greek  cul- 
ture of  the  Renaissance.  In  the  nineteenth  century  the 
Western  mind  has  received  no  slight  impression  from  the 
treasures  of  Indian  literature  and  philosophy.  The  yet 
more  recent  acquaintance  with  the  Japanese  culture  is 
likely  to  leave  lasting  results  in  the  sphere  of  art. 
The  West-  But  One  outcome  of  these  successive  incorporations  is 

era  culture      ^-j^^^  ^^iq  Westcm  culture  now  extends  to  so  much  of  the 

now  well- 
nigh  plane-     human  race  that  it  can  find  no  other  equal  culture  to 

^^^  mate  with.     The  opportunities  for  the  fruitful  marriage 

of  diverse  thought-systems  appear  to  be  well-nigh  ex- 
hausted. The  little  rudimentary  or  arrested  cultures  that 
travellers  still  light  on  in  out-of-the-way  corners  can,  of 
course,  contribute  nothing.  The  only  fecund  crossing  in 
prospect  is  that  of  Orient  with  Occident,  and  there  is 
little  likelihood  that  the  reaction  of  the  East  upon  the 
West  will  meet  the  expectations  formed  before  sociology 
demonstrated  the  eccentric  and  barren  character  of  the 
Oriental  civilization.  Equipped  with  that  incomparable 
instrument,  the  scientific  method,  the  Western  intellect  will 
probably  go  on  its  way  with  little  heed  to  what  the  East 
offers  it.  Apparently,  the  human  race  is  on  the  verge  of  a 
planetary  culture  that  must  be  fruitful  by  way  of  par- 
thenogenesis, unless,  peradventure,  some  stimulating  in- 
tellectual commerce  be  struck  up  with  the  folk  on  Mars ! 
The  trend  toward  a  vast  comprehensive  system  in  which 
the  intellectual  product  of  every  people  and  every  epoch 
finds  due  recognition  and  place  is  evidenced  not  only  by 


DISEQUILIBRATION  357 

the  reign  of  the  eclectic  spirit,  but  also  by  the  shifting  of 
several  branches  of  knowledge  from  the  dogmatic  to  the 
comparative  basis,  viz.,  comparative  religion,  comparative 
jurisprudence,  comparative  morality,  comparative  politics, 
comparative  art,  and  the  comparative  study  of  the  family. 

(2)  By  mutations  in  the  form  or  circumstances  of  society.   Shifting  of 
Growth  of  population,  growth  of  wealth,  altered  relations  fou^^adons 
to  other  societies,  the  conjugation  of  societies  through 
conquest  or  federation  ^  react  variously  upon  the  articu- 
lated body  of  culture.     Which  tends  to  prevail,  rural  life 

or  urban  life  ?  Is  local  redistribution  of  population  going 
on?  Is  selection  altering  the  mental  and  moral  traits  of 
the  population?  Is  population  overtaking  or  falling  be- 
hind subsistence?  Are  industrial  activities  gaining  on 
warlike  activities,  or  vice  versa?  Is  the  drift  towards 
centralization  or  away  from  it?  Is  wealth  concentrating 
or  spreading?  These  basal  demographic  and  economic 
changes  leave  their  mark  in  the  higher  sphere.  One 
might  term  it  the  influence  of  the  social  body  upon  the 
social  mind.  If,  for  example,  the  underlying  forces  are 
equalizing,  we  hear  of  democratic  religion,  democratic 
art,  democratic  morals  and  manners  and  sports  and  dress 
and  education.  If  society  should  realize  the  plutocratic 
type,  the  change,  no  doubt,  would  be  read  plainly  in  legal 
philosophy,  in  moral  standards,  religion,  art,  literature, 
social  customs,  and  institutions. 

(3)  By  the  welling  up  of  inventions  and  discoveries  from  The  afflux 
gifted  individuals.     Since  advance  by  borrowing  is  com-  °  inventions 
ing  to  an  end,  this  welling  up  of  happy  initiatives  from 
geniuses  is  the  only  lasting  reliance  for  progress.     What 

it  means  to  us  to-day  can  be  realized  by  comparing  our 

*  See  Ross,  "  Foundations  of  Sociology,"  207-354. 


358 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


No  prospect 
of  the  sta- 
tionary state 


situation  with  that  of  the  classic  civilization.  By  the  time 
of  Hadrian  the  opportunities  for  fresh  culture-contacts  in 
the  Graeco-Roman  world  were  practically  exhausted.  No 
new  ferments  were  to  be  found.  Lacking  the  originative 
spirit,  —  probably  because  the  superior  family  stocks  were 
extirpated  in  the  civil  and  social  wars  of  the  Greeks  and 
Romans,  —  society  came  to  a  standstill.  Says  Seeck :  ^ 
"From  Augustus  to  Diocletian  the  equipment  of  the 
legionary  remained  the  same.  No  improvement  of  tac- 
tics, no  new  means  of  warfare,  was  developed  in  the 
course  of  three  centuries.  .  .  .  Neither  in  agriculture  nor 
in  technique  nor  in  administration  does  a  single  new 
idea  of  any  significance  come  to  light  after  the  first  cen- 
tury. Literature  and  art,  too,  are  confined  to  a  sterile 
imitation  which  becomes  ever  more  empty  and  feeble. 
.  .  .  The  Neo-Platonic  philosophy  and  the  development 
of  Christian  dogma  are  the  only  achievements  which 
relieve  this  era  from  complete  futility." 

Happily,  the  Occident  is  seething  with  inventions  and 
discoveries,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  fear  the  coming  of 
the  stationary  state.  The  fecundity  of  our  time  is  partly 
due  to  the  fact  that  origination,  instead  of  being  acci- 
dental and  haphazard,  is  becoming  regular  and  systematic. 
Improvement  is  now  a  conscious  aim.  More  and  more, 
organized  society  furnishes  the  collections,  the  laboratories, 
the  ateliers;  maintains  the  investigators,  experimenters, 
and  explorers.  The  technique  of  origination  is  coming 
to  be  understood.  One  device  is  to  apply  in  the  back- 
ward fields  the  exact  methods  that  have  yielded  rich  har- 
vests elsewhere.  Another  is  specialization.  Another  is 
the  focussing  of  attack  on  a  specific  question  instead  of 

»  "Geschichte  des  Untergangs  der  antiken  Welt,"  I,  271-272. 


DISEQUILIBRATION  359 

groping.  Much,  too,  is  owed  to  that  intellectual  com- 
merce and  that  efi&cient  organization  of  science  by  which 
the  find  of  any  one  is  promptly  communicated  to  all  other 
workers,  who  immediately  make  it  the  basis  of  operations 
for  a  fresh  campaign.  From  Rio  Janeiro  to  Helsingfors 
and  from  Cambridge  to  Madras  the  assailants  of  the 
same  problem  are  coming  to  an  understanding  and  a  con- 
cert that  constitute  them  virtually  a  tract  in  the  great 
brain  of  humanity. 

It  is  in  the  nature  of  invention  to  be  individual  and  The  laws  of 
unpredictable.     Nevertheless,    there   are    certain   general  '"^^"^^'^"^ 
truths  touching  the  appearance  of  even  so  lawless  a  thing 
as  invention.^ 

The  higher  the  degree  of  possibility,  the  sooner  the  inven- 
tion is  likely  to  he  made. 

The  inventions  (or  discoveries)  in  a  particular  field  —  Degrees  of 
and  often  those  in  different  fields  —  are  in  a  chain  of  de-  Possibility 
pendence  which  obliges  them  to  occur  in  a  series.  Each 
ushers  in  a  train  of  possibles.  Now,  when  no  intervening 
invention  needs  to  be  made,  an  invention  may  be  said  to  be 
in  the  first  degree  of  possibility.  When  it  is  contingent 
on  another  yet  to  be  made,  it  is  in  the  second  degree  of 
possibility.  And  so  on.  Now,  when  an  invention  or 
discovery  reaches  the  first  degree  of  possibility,  it  is  ripe. 
Thus,  after  Kepler  announces  the  laws  of  planetary  move- 
ment, the  discovery  of  the  principle  of  universal  gravitation 
is  in  order  at  any  moment.  After  Galileo  has  proclaimed 
the  laws  of  the  pendulum,  its  use  in  time-keeping  needs 
but  a  single  stride.  The  electric  telegraph  is  due  any 
time  after  Ampere's  discoveries.  The  invention  of  Crookes' 
tubes  brings  the  X  ray  into  the  foreground  of  possibility. 

*  Tarde,  "La  logique  sociale,"  ch.  IV. 


360 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


Degrees  of 
diflScuIty 


How  society 
can  promote 
invention 


After  the  discovery  of  the  Hertzian  waves,  a  few  short 
steps  bring  wireless  telegraphy  upon  the  scene. 

The  less  the  difficulty  of  an  invention,  the  sooner  it  is 
likely  to  he  made. 

An  invention  is  not  an  outright  creation,  but,  in  most 
cases,  a  fresh  combination  of  known  factors.  Thus,  the 
combination  of  the  idea  of  the  elasticity  of  steam  with 
that  of  circular-linear  motion  produces  the  steam-engine; 
of  this  with  the  rail  —  already  in  use  for  colliery  cars  — ■ 
yields  the  locomotive.  The  combination  of  certain  prin- 
ciples in  optics  with  certain  principles  in  acoustics  gives 
the  undulatory  theory  of  light.  Now,  the  difficulty  of 
making  the  combination  of  ideas  for  any  particular  in- 
vention will  depend  upon  the  number  of  persons  who 
possess  these  ideas,  and  on  the  frequency  in  this  number 
of  individuals  with  the  intellectual  capacity  necessary  to 
combine  the  ideas  into  the  invention.  There  is  no  way  of 
affecting  the  latter  condition,  for  the  genius  is  in  no  wise 
a  social  product ;  but  organized  society  can  affect  the  former 
condition.  A  universal  system  of  gratuitous  instruction 
with  special  aid  and  opportunities  for  those  who  show 
unusual  power  amounts  to  an  actualizing  of  all  the  potential 
genius  in  a  population,  and  is  the  only  rational  policy 
for  insuring  a  continuous  and  copious  flow  of  inventions. 
It  is  hardly  necessary  to  point  out  that  only  a  stimulating, 
equipping  education  can  mature  geniuses.  A  regime  that 
prunes,  clips,  and  trains  minds  levels  genius  with  medi- 
ocrity. A  schooling  devised  primarily  to  produce  good 
character,  or  patriotism,  or  dynastic  loyalty,  or  class 
sentiment,  or  religious  orthodoxy  may  lessen  friction  in 
society,  but  it  cannot  bring  genius  to  bloom.  For  this 
the  prime  essentials  are  the  communicating  of  known 
truths  and  the  imparting  of  method. 


DISEQUILIBRATION  361 

Owing  to  the  intrusion  of  alien  elements  from  the  sources  a  lasting 
just  described,  an  achieved  equilibrium  of  culture  cannot  ^^"'''^""i^ 

J  '  ^  of  culture 

last.  Sooner  or  later  it  is  upset  and,  until  the  added  ele-  neither  pos- 
ments  can  fall  into  some  kind  of  harmony  with  the  rest,  desirable 
there  is  confusion.  In  Israel,  after  the  era  of  prophets, 
a  certain  system  of  life  and  thought  was  worked  out,  but, 
after  some  centuries,  the  teachings  of  Jesus  rocked  it  to 
its  base.  By  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  a  con- 
sensus had  been  reached  regarding  the  tests  of  the  excel- 
lence of  a  literary  work.  But  the  canons  set  up  by  the 
Augustans  were  swept  into  limbo  by  the  unfettered 
genius  of  the  Romanticists.  The  compact  synthesis 
and  harmonious  adjustment  effected  by  Thomas  Aquinas 
in  the  knowledge  of  his  age  satisfied  for  a  time.  But 
heliocentrism,  prehistoric  archeology,  the  geologic  record, 
and  evolutionism  have  shattered  it  into  ruins.  Under 
the  old  guild  regime  industry  was  subjected  to  a  system 
of  regulations  designed  to  safeguard  the  public  interests 
and  the  craft  interest  against  the  reckless  pursuit  of  in- 
dividual advantage.  But  the  coming  of  the  factory  drew 
industry  to  new  seats  and  ushered  in  a  period  of  disorgan- 
ization and  unrestrained  competition. 

Some    interpret    the    incongruities    and    contradictions  The  contra- 
visible  in  our  culture  as  proof  of  the  indifference  of  the  ^"^^'^"^ 

J^  about  us  are 

social  mind  to  logic.  The  inference  is  wrong.  Man's  not  due  to 
love  of  logic  is  only  too  apparent.  The  attempt  to  correct  ^^^^  ° 
mortal  theological  error  by  civil  penalty,  the  Cliristian 
countenancing  of  the  African  slave  trade  on  the  ground 
that  it  brought  the  blacks  within  reach  of  the  faith  that 
would  save  their  souls,  the  endeavor  to  reproduce  in  roomy 
colonies  the  social  system  of  the  crowded  mother  country, 
the  precipitate  extension  of  the  franchise  to  the  negro 


362  SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 

freedman  in  deference  to  the  doctrine  of  equality,  the 
confidence  that  if  a  literary  education  is  good  for  a  white 
race  it  will  benefit  non-industrial  races,  —  these  show  how 
logic  can  triumph  over  humanity  and  common  sense.  The 
contradictions  that  come  to  light  tend  to  be  eliminated  by 
the  desire  for  congruity  which  is  increasingly  felt  as  a 
people  develops  socially.  The  grammar  of  a  language, 
a  system  of  theology,  a  legal  code,  a  political  constitution, 
a  philosophy,  or  a  science,  though  it  be  the  joint  product 
of  many  minds,  exhibits,  in  most  cases,  a  logical  consist- 
ency that  is  astonishing. 
They  are  If,  then,  our  time  is  full  of  contradictions,  it  is  because 

ue  to  put-     Q^j.  culture  is  not  allowed  to  achieve  an  equilibrium.     The 

ting  new  ^ 

wine  into  Steady  afflux  of  new  examples,  inventions,  and  discoveries 
o  ottes  produces  confusion.  Our  culture  is  like  an  edifice  that, 
while  it  is  being  torn  down  piecemeal  and  rebuilt, 
imites  discordant  styles  of  architecture.  Constitutional 
monarchy,  with  its  figurehead  king,  who  "reigns  but  does 
not  govern,"  is  plainly  an  instance  of  new  wine  in  an  old 
bottle.  If  the  Russian  government  will  not  set  to  work 
the  ice-breaker  Ermak  —  an  epitome  of  exact,  matter-of- 
fact,  applied  science  from  a  Philadelphia  ship- yard  —  until 
it  has  been  solemnly  blessed  and  sprinkled  by  a  squad 
of  priests,  it  is  because  in  Russia  meet  medieeval  faith  and 
modern  mechanism.  If  the  Japanese  do  not  see  the  in- 
congruity of  killing  their  foes  by  machinery  and  attributing 
the  result  to  the  intervention  of  the  spirits  of  their  ancestors, 
it  is  because  only  within  our  lifetime  has  naval  warfare  come 
to  be  virtually  an  extra-hazardous  branch  of  engineering. 
If  we  Americans  are  blind  to  the  contradictions  between 
what  our  schools  do  and  what  we  expect  of  them,  it  is 
because  the  old  idea  of  education  as  book  learning  sur- 


DISEQUILIBRATION  363 

vives  into  a  time  when  the  aims  of  the  school  system  have 
greatly  changed. 

Nevertheless,  a  transition  epoch  is  a  halcyon  time  for  Times  of 
individuality.     For  with  the  growth  of  the  social  mind  in  d'sequiiibra- 

■'  _  "  tion  give  the 

content  it  is  a  question  what  will  be  the  fate  of  personal  individual  a 
individuality.     Will  there  be  more  room  for  spontaneity  ^^^'^^^ 
and  choice,  or  is  the  individual  doomed  to  shrivel  as  the 
transmitted  culture  becomes  huger  and  more  integrated? 
As   that    cockle-shell,    the    individual    soul,    leaving    the 
tranquil  pool  of  tribal  life,  passes  first  into  the  sheltered 
lake  of  some  city  community,  then  into  the  perilous  sea 
of  national  life,  and  at  last  emerges  upon  the   immense 
ocean  of  humanity's  life,  does  it  enjoy  an  ever  widening 
freedom  of  movement,  or  does  it,  too  frail  to  navigate  the 
vaster  expanses,   become   more  and   more   the   sport  of 
irresistible  currents?     On  the  one  hand,  it  may  be  urged  Does  the 
that,  as  one  rises  clear  of  bodily  wants  and  promptings,  [Jj^^"'"?  "f 
one's  self-determination  contracts,  one's  life  is  more  and  mind  cramp 
more    moulded    by    conceptual    rather    than    impulsive  Jf^ii^lp' 
factors;    that  is  to  say,  by  ideas,  ideals,  beliefs,  world 
views,  and  the  like.     The  growing  preponderance  of  such 
factors  subjects  a  man  more  to  his  social  environment, 
for  these  are  just  the  things  that  are  easiest  taken  on  by 
imitation  or  stamped  in  by  education.     You  say  the  stock 
of  possessions  to  choose  from  grows  with  each  generation. 
True,  but  nevertheless  the  incompatible  ideas  and  ideals 
become  fewer,  because  one  of  the  incompatibles  exter-  The  integra- 
minates  the  other.     Consider,  moreover,  how  the  diversity  ^°"  ^^ 
in  the  cultural  elements  offered  one  becomes  less,  owing  to 
the  march  of  adaptation.     Spelling  becomes  definite ;  idio- 
matic flexible  speech  falls  under  the  tyranny  of  grammar 
and  of  style.     The  dictionary  expands,  but  the  number  of 


3^4 


SOCIAL   PSYCHOLOGY 


The  diversi- 
fication of 
culture 


synonyms  declines  as  meanings  become  more  shaded  and 
precise.  A  religious  ferment  emancipates  souls,  but  out 
of  it  dogmas  soon  crystallize  and  close  in  on  the  mind. 
In  time  unrelated  dogmas  are  compared  and  sifted,  and 
the  complementary  ones  are  erected  into  an  imposing 
theology,  like  that  of  St.  Thomas  or  Calvin,  which  from 
foundation  to  turret  stone  offers  the  believer  no  option. 
So  from  the  discussions  of  jurists  emerge  general  principles 
which  transform  a  mass  of  incongruous,  even  contradic- 
tory, customs  and  statutes  into  a  system  of  jurisprudence 
from  which  inharmonious  elements  have  been  expelled, 
and  which  utterly  dominates  the  ordinary  intellect.  Like- 
wise, un-unified  generalizations  about  the  external  world, 
each  trailing  off  into  the  unknown  with  many  inviting 
paths  of  suggestion,  are  integrated  and  the  gaps  filled  in 
until  there  exists  a  body  of  articulated  propositions  called 
a  science;  and  the  generalizations  of  the  various  sciences 
find  a  still  higher  synthesis  in  systems  of  philosophy. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  is  certainly  a  progressive 
diversification  and  enrichment  of  culture  which  offers  one 
a  greater  number  of  options  and  permits  him  to  indulge 
his  individual  fancy.  The  great  variety  of  sects  seems 
harbinger  of  the  day  when  there  will  be  as  many  creeds 
as  there  are  believers.  Science,  of  course,  being  a  verified 
transcript  of  reality,  can  be  but  one ;  but,  just  as  a  widening 
circle  of  light  enlarges  the  ring  of  darkness,  a  growth  of 
the  known  gives  fresh  opportunities  to  speculate  about 
the  unknown.  The  widening  scope  for  the  play  of  in- 
dividuality is  seen  in  the  coexistence  in  our  Occidental 
culture  of  a  greater  number  of  types  of  music,  styles  of 
painting  or  architecture,  forms  of  literature,  theories  of  life 
and  conduct.     Since  these  appeal  to  the  needs  of  diverse 


DISEQUILIBRATION  365 

temperaments,  it  is  unlikely  that  the  spirit  of  unifi- 
cation will  bring  about  the  triumph  of  one  over  the 
rest,  or  their  coadaptation  into  one  form.  The  Protestant 
will  not  absorb  the  Catholic,  nor  the  Methodist  the  Pres- 
byterian. Italian  and  German  opera,  classic  painting 
and  impressionistic,  lyric  and  dramatic  poetry,  realistic 
fiction  and  romance,  Stoicism  and  Epicureanism,  the 
"woman"  ideal  and  the  "lady"  ideal,  will  persist  side 
by  side,  because  they  meet  the  needs  of  different  people. 
Just  as  a  developed  society  partly  compensates  for  the 
cramping  of  specialism  by  offering  the  individual  a  greater 
variety  of  vocations  to  select  from,  so  a  developed  culture 
affords  multifarious  opportunities  from  which  each  can 
choose  what  is  congenial  to  his  nature. 

SUMMARY 

The  elements  in  a  culture  ever  tend  toward  but  rarely  reach  an 
equilibrium. 

Their  reciprocal  adjustments  are  continually  disturbed  by  bor- 
rowings or  inventions  or  the  influence  of  social  changes. 

Our  Western  culture  has  become  so  comprehensive  that  there  are 
no  alien  bodies  of  culture  likely  to  have  a  marked  effect  upon  its 
development. 

Its  future  course  is  likely  to  be  determined  by  the  character  of 
the  inventions  and  discoveries  that  will  be  made. 

The  numerous  incongruities  and  absurdities  in  our  culture  do  not 
prove  the  social  mind  illogical.  They  result  from  the  hasty  incor- 
poration of  new  unassimilated  elements. 

In  a  time  of  disequilibration  individuality  has  freer  play  than  in 
a  settled  time. 

The  equilibration  of  culture  means  the  confinement  of  the  mind 
in  some  directions,  its  emancipation  in  other  directions. 


366  SOCIAL  PSYCHOLOGY 

EXERCISES 

1.  Cite  instances  of  the  fruitful  application  in  one  field  of  inves- 
tigation of  methods  that  have  succeeded  in  other  fields. 

2.  Take  a  science  like  chemistry  or  physiology  and  describe  the 
system  of  meetings,  bulletins,  monthlies,  quarterlies,  and  annuals  by 
which  the  find  of  any  one  anywhere  is  soon  made  known  to  all 
workers  everywhere. 

3.  Why  is  Httle  in  the  way  of  gift  or  stimulus  to  be  expected  from 
the  Oriental  cultures? 

4.  What  requirements  have  been  imposed  upon  our  school  system 
that  book  learning  cannot  absolve? 

5.  Account  for  the  incongruity  between  the  prevalent  military 
notion  of  city  government  and  its  actual  character  as  civic  house- 
keeping.    [See  Addams,  "Newer  Ideals  of  Peace,"  chs.  ii,  iv,  vii.] 

6.  Explain  why  the  public  resents  peccadillos  as  crimes  and 
treats  crimes  as  peccadillos.  [See  Ross,  "Sin  and  Society,"  chs.  i 
and  ii.] 

7.  Is  there  reason  for  thinking  that  the  progress  of  Western  cul- 
ture narrows  one's  options  in  believing  and  judging,  but  multiplies 
one's  options  in  doing  and  enjoying  ? 


INDEX 


Abnormal  suggestibility,  21-30. 
Accumulation,  330-336. 
Adams,  quoted,  222  n. 
Addams,  quoted,  iii,  112,  114,  147. 
Administration,  red  tape  in,  207,  208. 
Administrative  agencies,  judicial  over- 
throw of,   212. 

Affinity,  6-9. 

Age,    of    Chinese    officials,    219;     of 

revolutionary     leaders,      219;       of 

naval  officers,  221  n.;    of  industrial 

captains,  221  n.;    of  Judges,  222. 
Age  and  conservatism,  217-224. 
Allen,  quoted,  162. 
Americanism,  241-243. 
Americanization,   of  immigrants,    36, 

140,    241-243,    315-317;    of   Porto 

Ricans,  138-140. 
Americans,  210-213,  221,  265,  266. 
Amos,  quoted,  206. 
Ancestor  worship,  217. 
Animism,  202,  203. 
Appetites,  infectiousness  of  the,   125, 

126. 
Aristocracy,    159-164,    170-172,    189, 

194,  281. 
Aristocracy  of  achievement,  the,  169- 

175- 
Armenians,  240. 
Arrested  development,  209,  250. 
Arts,  the,  287-289,  294,  364,  365. 
Asiatic  immigration,  265,  266. 
Assimilation,  240-243,  315-317. 
Association,  3,  4,  11. 
Atavism,  198. 

Attention,  44,  54,  55,  346,  353. 
Authority,  287,  299,  303,  348. 

Bacon,  304,  305. 

Bagehot,   quoted,   37,   199,  209,  234- 

238. 
Barnes,  quoted,  220  n. 


Baudrillart,  quoted,  167,  169. 
Beauty,    ideals    of   female,    134-136; 

pecuniary  standards  of,  116. 
Bent,  quoted,  107. 
Birth-rate,  265,  266. 
Bodley,  quoted,  160  n. 
Boers,  conservatism  of  the,  150-153. 
Booms,  59,  78. 
Boscovich,  quoted,  317. 
Rose,  quoted,  28-30. 
Bourgeois  standards,  111-116. 
Boutmy,  quoted,  154  n.,  210. 
Brooks,  quoted,  97-99. 
Brj'ce,   quoted,  38-41,   100,  155,  191, 

232,  238,  240,  244,  267,  348. 
Buckle,  cited,  224  n. 
Burke,  quoted,  279,  280. 

"Cake  of  custom,"  209. 
Campaign,  346-351. 
Capitals,  183-187. 
Catholicism,  6-9,  162,  320,  332. 
Censorship,  moral,  126,  133. 
Ceremony,  209,  272. 
Chesterton,  quoted,  118,  131  n. 
Children,  rights  of,  148,  149. 
Children's  crusade,  the,  69. 
Chinese,  14,  219,  232,  250,  266. 
Christianity,  early,  66-68,  183. 
Cincinnati  mob,  the,  55  n. 
Cities,  mob  mind  in,  58-61 ;    hysteria 

in,  87,  88. 
City,  the,  as  radiant  point,  181-189. 
Clannishness,  228,  239. 
Classes,  156-164,  351. 
Coe,  15;   quoted,  16,  27,  52-54,  91. 
Collective    habits,    stability   of,    256- 

262. 
Commercialism,  103,  11 2-1 15. 
Common  Law,  the,  211-213. 
Competition,  255,  256,  262,  288. 
Compromise,  319  n.,  326,  338-344. 


567 


368 


INDEX 


Compromisers,  339,  340. 

Conflict,  silent,  296-305;  vocal,  307- 
317;  phases  of,  317-319;  evolu- 
tion of,  319-322;    results  of,  324- 

329- 

Conservatism,  115,  150-156,  201- 
203,  209-213,  217-252,  286,  362. 

Conservatism  and  age,  217-224. 

Constantine,  quoted,  208. 

Constitutionalism,  206,  280. 

Consumption,  competitive,  99-106. 

Contradictions  in  culture,  361,362. 

Control,  institutions  of,  270-273. 

Conventionality,  nature  of,  110-119; 
laws  of,  121-145  ;  radiant  points  of, 
147-194;  compared  with  custom, 
196,  197. 

Conventionality  imitation,  compared 
with  custom  imitation,  196,  197, 
275-283. 

Cook,  quoted,  282. 

Cooley,  quoted,  4,  23  n.,  30-33,  175. 

Cosmopolitanism,  276,  277. 

Country,  the,  60,  88,  181-188,  226,  227. 

Courts,  conservatism  of,  210-212. 

Craze,  the,  65-80. 

Creed,  evolution  of,  205,  320. 

Criminal  festivals,  258-260. 

Criticism,  289. 

Crowd,  the,  43-64. 

Crowd  self,  the,  54-56. 

Cult  of  progress,  242. 

Culture,  330-336,  363-365;  the  de- 
scent of,  157. 

Culture  contacts,  244-250,  355,  356. 

Curiosity,  128,  129. 

Currents,  social,  i,  129. 

Custom,  79,  149. 

Custom  imitation,  characteristics, 
196-215;  conditions  affecting,  217- 
252;  fields  of,  254-273;  relation 
to  conventionality  imitation,  275- 
283. 

Dancing  mania,  the,  121. 
Davenport,  quoted,  47  n. 
De  Lesseps,  127. 
Deliberation,  social,  346,  347. 
Deliberative  bodies,  57. 
Democracy,    39,    99,    162,    172-174, 
189-192,  265,  292,  302,  351,  352. 


De  Tocqueville,  quoted,  189. 

Dialects,  influence  of,  227,  228. 

Dicey,  quoted,  343. 

Dill,  quoted,  34,  166. 

Discussion,  47,  57,  270,  307-322,  338- 
340;  effect  of,  307-311;  condi- 
tions of,  311-317;  phases  of,  317— 
319;  evolution  of,  319-322;  free- 
dom of,  234-238. 

DisequUibration,  355-365. 

Dollarocracy,  176-179. 

Dress  reform,  107,  108. 

Duration  of  suggestion,  35,  36. 

Dynamic  society,  traits  of,  79,  80. 

Ecuador,  labor  in,  264. 

Education,  228,  231,  232,  292  n.,  302, 
360,  362;  higher,  84,  153,  154,  161, 
162,  173,  174,  232,  233;  formaliza- 
tion of,  208;  time  element  in,  35. 

El  Azhar,  233. 

Elite,  the,  5,  8,  192. 

Emerson,  quoted,  87. 

Emotionalism  of  the  crowd,  46. 

England,  162-164,  210,  340-344. 

Epidemics,  mental,  69-74,  121-123. 

Equality,  39,  161,  162,  190;  the  idea 
of,  193,  194. 

Evans,  A.  J.,  cited,  230. 

Evans,  quoted,  66  n. 

Example,  305. 

Exploitation,  264,  282. 

Fad,  theory  of  the,  80,  81. 

Faddists,  80,  81,  84,  298. 

Familism,  88,  89,  251. 

Fashion,  94-108. 

Fashion  process,  the,  99-103. 

Fasting  and  suggestibility,  21. 

Fatalism  of  the   multitude,    the,    40, 

191. 
Fatigue  and  suggestibility,  22-25. 
Feelings,  contagiousness  of,  1 26-1 31; 

persistence  of,  266-270. 
Ferrero,  quoted,  258-260. 
Feuds,  225,  226,  266,  275. 
Fiske,  quoted,  153,  282. 
Fixation    of    attention,    44,    54,    55, 

346. 
Flagellants,  the,  121. 
Foss,  quoted,  257  n. 


INDEX 


369 


France,  160,  160  n.,  168,  169,  170- 
172,  183-186,  193,  194,  343.  344- 

Franks,  267. 

Free  contract,  laws  "interfering" 
with,  211. 

Freedom  of  discussion,  234-238,  307- 

309- 
French  Canadians,  150,  315. 
French  Revolution,  219. 
Fry,  quoted,  122,  124,  132. 

Gerard,  quoted,  239  n.,  255  n. 

Germans,  155,  156. 

Giddings,  quoted,  59-61. 

Ghost-dancing,  14. 

Godkin,  quoted,  310,  311. 

Goldziher,  quoted,  141  n. 

Government,  224,  271,  272,  309. 

Gray,  quoted,  69. 

"Great  Fear,"  the,  73,  74. 

Great  men,  41,  175,  360. 

Greeks,     218,    229,     230,    355,    356, 

358. 
Guest  friendship,  229,  230. 
Gurewitsch,  cited,  156. 

Habits  of  consumption,  262-265. 

Harnack,  quoted,  66-68. 

Harrison,  quoted,  179  n. 

Hart,  quoted,  308. 

Harte,  quoted,  314  n. 

Hearn,  quoted,  loi,  157. 

Henderson,  quoted,  223. 

Heredity,  compared  with  custom,  198- 

202. 
Higginson,  quoted,  169. 
"Historical  continuity"  school,  203. 
"Holy  Laugh,"  the,  52,  122. 
Home,  influence  of  the,  230,  256. 
Homogeneity,   favorable  to  mob,  60, 

61 ;   to  craze,  80. 
Hospitality,  225,  229,  230. 
House  life,    conserving   influence   of, 

230. 
Hypnotism,  16,  26-30. 
Hysteria,  16,  22-25. 

Ideals,    269;    descent  of,    158;    con- 
tagiousness of,  1 31-136. 
Illusion,  324,  325. 
Immaculate  Conception,  282. 


Immigrants,  241-243,  260-262,  315- 

317- 
Improved   communication,    effect   of, 

227. 

Indians,  14,  150,  153,  154  n. 

Individual  ascendency,  4-8. 

Individualism,  241 ;    intellectual,  90. 

Individuality,  4,  43,  44,  9°.  91.  i^i. 
227,  363-365;  in  early  society,  38; 
in  small  societies,  41 ;  building  of, 
83-92. 

Individualization,  17,  251. 

Inequality,  the  passion  for,  97-99. 

Interference,  296. 

Interpsychology,  3. 

Invention,  285,  357-360. 

Islam,  244,  245,  269  n. 

Islands,  conserving  influence  of,  226. 

Isolation,  physical,  224-227;  lin- 
guistic,  227,  228;    social,  228. 

James,  quoted,  43,  no. 

Japanese,  157,  158,  196,  356,  362. 

Jastrow,  quoted,  181. 

Jeans,  quoted,  221  n. 

Jenks,  quoted,  202,  217  n.,  246,  277, 

279. 
Jewish  Messiahs,  77. 
Jews,  228,  241. 
Jones,  quoted,  58,  78. 
Joseph  II,  300-302. 
Judges,  210  n.,  222-224. 
Judson,  quoted,  214. 
Jugglery,  Indian,  28-30. 
Jumpers,  the,  121. 
Juvenile  testimony,  15. 

Keller,  quoted,  229. 
Kipling,  quoted,  218  n. 
Kirghiz,  200. 
Koran,  233,  238. 

Language,  204,  331,  364. 

Law,  203,  206,  270,  271,  333,  364. 

Laws  of  crazes,  the,  76-80;  of  con- 
ventionality imitation,  121-145. 

Lawyers,  223,  224. 

Leadership,  6,  8,  32,  ^3,  46,  47.  57> 
192.   291,   348-351. 

Le  Bon,  quoted,  127,  207. 

Legal  procedure,  206. 


2B 


370 


INDEX 


Lemaitre,  quoted,  208. 
Literacy,  effect  of,  231. 
Loyalty,  266,  267. 

McMaster,  quoted,  50-52. 
Macaulay,  quoted,  340-343. 
MacGahan,  quoted,  200. 
Mahaffy,  quoted,  182,  225. 
Mahan,  quoted,  194. 
Maine,  quoted,  199,  278. 
Majorities,  as  radiant  point,  189-192. 
Mammon  worshippers,  11 2-1 14,  175- 

179. 
"Man  of  action,"  the,  127. 
Manual  labor,  stigma  on,  in,  112. 
Mark  Twain,  quoted,  349. 
Marriage,  147,  148,  287. 
Martyrdom,  303,  304. 
Maspero,  quoted,  204. 
Mead,  quoted,  262. 
Measurement,  288. 
Merit,  297-299. 
Mexico,  labor  in,  263. 
Migration,  eflect  of,  243. 
Migration  mania,  73. 
Mill,  quoted,  271. 
Millerism,  70. 
Miracles,  27,  28. 
Missionary  work,  36. 
Mob,  the,  49-61. 
Mob  folk,  83,  86,  87,  92. 
Mob     mind,     63-81 ;      prophylactics 

against,  83-92. 
Monarchy,  184,  302. 
Morality,  56,  90,  273,  275,  276,  277, 

293- 
Morris,  quoted,  247-250. 
Moss,  quoted,  105  n. 
Mott,  quoted,  35,  36. 
Mountains,    conserving   influence   of, 

225-227. 
Miinsterberg,  quoted,  173,  242  n. 

Nation,  Mrs.,  71. 
National  drinks,  125. 
National  gestures,  123. 
Nationalism,  187,  276,  277. 
New  England,  154. 
Newspaper,  the,  85,  86,  231,  352. 
Nicolay  and  Hay,  quoted,  75,  76. 
Nitobe,  quoted,  158. 


Nordau,  quoted,  22-25. 
Normal  suggestibility,  18-27. 
Numbers,  influence  of,  40,  41. 

Obedience,  32>  34,  136,  297. 

Old  men,  conservatism  of,  217-224. 

Onomatopoeia,  124,  125. 

Oriental  civilization,  209,  356. 

Origination,  285,  357-360. 

Ornament,  96,  97. 

Ownership  of  property,  89. 

Palmer,  quoted,  149,  160  n. 

Panics,  financial,  59,  76. 

Paradox,  324,  325. 

Paragraphesis,  86. 

Parents,  influence  of,  33,  197,  198. 

Paris,  183-186. 

Pecuniary  civilization,  175-179. 

Pecuniary  success,  11 2-1 15. 

Persecution,  241,  303-305. 

Pittsburg,  176  n. 

Plutocracy,  175-179,  357. 

Polemic,  theory  of  the,  313. 

Porto  Rico,  138-140. 

Pound,  quoted,  206,  211-213. 

"Power,"  the,  53,  66-68. 

Power-holders,  as  radiant  point,  166- 

169. 
Prestige,    30-34,    270-273,    277-283, 

288,   291,   296-298. 
Progress,  94,  237,  238,  286,  287,  309- 

3".  357-360. 
Protestantism,    6-8,    162,    225,    226, 

351- 
Provincialism,  167,  179,  184-187. 
Public,  the,  63-65,  346-348. 
Public  opinion,  secret  of,  38-40;   rule 

of,  65;    formation  of,  346-353- 
Pulitzer,  quoted,  176. 

Quakers,  68,  69. 

Race  feeling,  239-241,  268. 

Race  suicide,  266. 

Race  traits,  3,  13. 

Rational  imitation,  174,  175,  285-294. 

Red  tape,  207,  208. 

Religion,    i,    6-8,    91,    92,    204,    205, 

268,  269,  272,  331,  332,  364. 
Revival,  the  religious,  50-54,  78,  79. 


INDEX 


371 


Rich,  the,  as  radiant  point,  175-179. 

Ripley,  quoted,  135. 

Ritual,   increasing  precision  of,    204, 

205. 
Roberts,  quoted,  260-262. 
Roman  emperors,  example  of,  166. 
Romans,  217  n.,  355,  358. 
Rome,  34,  167. 
Roosevelt,  quoted,  221  n. 
Rules  of  Order,  the,  57. 
Rural  community,  mob  mind  in  the, 

60,  61. 
Russian  imperialism,  240,  241. 

Sabbathai  Zevi,  77. 

Sacred  books,  influence  of,  238. 

Saxons,  of  Transylvania,  239  n.,  255  n. 

School,  the,  231,  232. 

Schreiner,  quoted,  151-153. 

Science,  157,  289-294,  317-319,  321, 

332.  333.  358.  361,  364- 
Sedentariness,   conservative  influence 

of,  243. 
Seeck,  quoted,  358. 
Self,  the,  26,  27,  43,  44- 
Self -individualization,  96-100. 
Sex  appetite,  the,  126. 
Sex  charm,  134-136. 
Sex  relations,  268. 
Sexes,   unequal  suggestibility  of,    16, 

17- 

Shakers,  66,  67. 

Shakespeare,  quoted,  19-21. 

Sheffield,  quoted,  219,  232,  250. 

Sidis,  quoted,  26,  43,  45,  48,  72,  77. 

Slavery,  5,  6,  287,  308,  315,  328,  361. 

Smart  set,  the,  177,  178. 

Smith,  cited,  211  n. 

Snobbery,  97-99,  116,  162-164. 

Social  ascendency,  4-8. 

Social  cause,  i,  3. 

Social  current,  1,  2,  129. 

Social  gravity,  147-164. 

Social  plane,  1-3. 

Social  psychology,  nature  and  scope, 
1-9;  differentiated  from  sociology, 
2;    usefulness,  3,  4;    divisions,  4-6. 

Sociology,  relation  to  social  psy- 
chology, 2. 

Sombart,  quoted,  104-106. 

Specialization,  327,  328,  349,  358. 


"Spirit,"  the,  66-68. 

"Spirit  of  the  age,"  the,  118,  119. 

Sports,  86,  87. 

Stampedes,  73. 

Standard  of  living,  262-266. 

Starr,  quoted,  97. 

State,   the,   206,   224,    246,   250,   334, 

338.  344,  351- 
Stephens,  quoted,  73,  74. 
Stimulants,   use  of,   by  women,    117, 

118. 
Stoicism,  149,  225,  226. 
St.  Simon,  quoted,  168. 
Successful,  the,  as  radiant  point,  169- 

175- 

Suggestibility,  11-41;  in  the  crowd, 
43-55;  in  city  and  country,  60,  61, 
87,  88;  in  the  early  church,  66- 
68;    in  mediaeval  society,  69,  70. 

Sumptuary  laws,  loi,  102. 

Superior,  the  social,  as  radiant  point, 

147-164,  193,  194- 
Superstition,  292  n. 
Survivals,   theory  of,    142,    143,    254, 

256. 

Taine,  quoted,  170-172,  184-186. 

Talk,  310,  311. 

Tarde,  quoted,  37,  129,  136,  143, 
159,  168,  183,  193,  320-322,  330- 
335,  346. 

Tarde's  law,  137. 

Taylor,  quoted,  6. 

Teacher,  the,  85,  231. 

Temperament,  15,  324. 

Theological  controversy,  313. 

Theology,  291,  313,  317-319. 

Thomas,  quoted,  17. 

Tiflis,  135,  240. 

Time  element,  in  suggestion,  35,  36; 
in  formation  of  mob,  49;  in  de- 
velopment of  craze,  76;  in  fashion, 
104-106;  in  formation  of  public 
opinion,  346-348,  350,  351. 

Toleration,  236,  241,  308. 

Toleration  Act,  the,  340-343. 

Trade  union,  315-317- 

Tradition,  8,  196-252,  269,  353. 

Traditionalism,  199-203,  227,  228, 
231-233,  238-241,  243,  251. 

Traditional  society,  275. 

Transcaucasia,  240. 


372 


INDEX 


Tulip  mania,  the,  71-73. 
Turks,  245. 

Uniformity,  psychic,  1-9. 
Union,  logical,  330-336- 
Universities,  173,  174,  182,  232,  233, 
334- 

Veblen,    quoted,   95,    102,    115,    116, 

117,  134- 

Verification,  290. 

Volitions,  contagiousness  of,  136. 

Volume  of  suggestion,  37-41. 

Voluntary  associations,  90. 

Voluntary    movement,    and   suggesti- 
bility, 43.  44- 

Walker,  quoted,  243  n. 
Wants,  the  descent  of,  156. 


Ward,  quoted,  245,  246. 

Warfare,  effect  of,  245-250. 

War  spirit  of  '61,  the,  75,  76. 

Watterson,  quoted,  177. 

Weil,  quoted,  263. 

Wesley,  quoted,  122  n. 

"Western"  spirit,  the,  214. 

White,  quoted,  291  n.,  304,  319  n. 

Witchcraft,  37,  311. 

Woman,  conservatism  of,  230. 

Womanliness,      standards     of,      117, 

118. 
Women,  16,  17,  134-136,  319. 
Wom.en's  Crusade,  the,  71. 
Workingmen's  standards,  111-115. 
Wright,  quoted,  315-317. 

Yogi,  28-30. 


By  EDWARD    A.  ROSS 

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